


Coming Home

by julia_wicker_the_goddess



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, No beta reader, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, We Die Like Men, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 29
Words: 61,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25285960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julia_wicker_the_goddess/pseuds/julia_wicker_the_goddess
Summary: Octavia has been missing for over 4 years. When Raven gets a phone call one day that she’s been found, it’ll take everything in her to help her girlfriend start to heal from what she’s been through.
Relationships: Octavia Blake/Raven Reyes
Comments: 168
Kudos: 139





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this a few years ago and then deleted my account so I’ve decided to repost it now.
> 
> Content/Trigger Warnings: this story will have somewhat graphic medical descriptions, somewhat graphic descriptions of abuse, and non-graphic mentions of rape. If you are triggered by any of these things, I’d suggest reading a different story.

It’s 8pm when Raven gets the call. She’s drying her hair and almost misses it, but she sees her phone lighting up and grabs it.

“Hello?”

“Is this Raven Reyes?”

“Yes.”

“I’m calling you because you’ve been put as the emergency contact for Octavia Blake.”

“Is she okay? Is she alive?”

“Ms. Reyes, Ms. Blake was found this morning by the police. She’s at St. Cosmas hospital in Rockford.”

“She’s alive?” Raven sits down on the floor, hand over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes.

“Yes. We need you to come to the hospital and make some medical decisions for Ms. Blake.”

“Okay. Um, I can come down right away. I should be there in 45 minutes.” She’s shaking as she hangs up the phone. Octavia is alive. After all this time, Raven had started to give up hope. She quickly straps on her brace, throws her phone, wallet, keys, and a charger into her bag and heads out the door. 

As she gets onto the highway, Raven can’t keep herself from speeding. It’s been over 4 years since she saw Octavia last, and she doesn’t want to wait another moment. She finally gets there and parks in the first spot she sees, half-jogging to the building.

“Can I help you?” The lady at the desk says.

“I’m Raven Reyes. I’m here for Octavia Blake?”

“Are you family?”

“No, but I’m her emergency contact. I got a call about making medical decisions for her.”

“Alright, let me just look her up. Birthdate?”

“Hers?”

“Yes.”

“June seventeenth, 1996.”

“Okay. The doctor is going to come get you in a little while, if you would just wait here in these chairs.”

“Can’t I see her?”

“The doctor wants to speak with you first.”

Raven nods and sits down, becoming more worried. She worked in a hospital as an orderly in college. She knows that if a doctor wants to talk to her before she sees Octavia, it’s serious.

  
  


Twenty minutes drag by before a woman calls “Raven Reyes.” She gets up.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Griffin.”

“Is Octavia okay?”

“That’s what I need to talk to you about.” Dr. Griffin leads Raven to an office and gestures for her to sit down. There are two police officers there.

“Ms. Reyes, this is Officer Miller and Officer Murphy.”

“What’s going on?”

“Ms. Reyes, Octavia called 911 this morning at 10:22am from the home of a Mr. Carl Emerson. Does that name sound familiar?”

“No.”

“She told the operator that she and 2 other girls were being held against their will and that she had been stabbed and needed an ambulance.”

“What?” She stares in disbelief.

“When we arrived, we found Mr. Emerson unconscious. We believe he was choked till unconscious using a power cord. He had also been castrated and lost a pretty good amount of blood,” says Murphy, smirking.

Miller continues, “Ms. Blake was found bleeding profusely from a stab wound, we believe from Mr. Emerson. It looked like she had dragged herself out of the room he was in and up the stairs to where she found his phone. We’re fairly sure that she and the other two girls were being abused. They were all found in a state of undress and the other two were chained up in bedrooms. We’re going to keep investigating this case and will likely be asking Ms. Blake some questions once she is well enough.”

“Octavia was stabbed? Is she okay?”

“Dr. Griffin can speak more to that, but from my understanding she is stable. Before we go, do you have any specific questions we can answer?”

“Um, was she awake? When you found her?”

“No. She was unconscious. We think she passed out midway through her phone call because the operator said she stopped responding to questions.”

“Fucking hell.” Raven puts her head in her hands.

“Unless you have any more questions, we’ll give you some privacy.”

“Where is he? That... that motherfucker?” Raven voice fills with venom.

“Emmerson? He’s receiving medical treatment under observation by an officer. As soon as he’s healthy enough, he’ll be transferred to jail,” Murphy says.

“He’s here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Miller replies.

“He had better not get anywhere near Octavia or come in my sight or I swear to God I will kill him.”

“You have our word. As soon as we can, we will get him out of here to jail.”

Raven nods shakily and the officers leave.

“Are you okay to hear about Ms. Blake’s medical status?” Dr. Griffin asks. “I know this is a lot.”

She nods again, too numb to need to brace herself.

“As the officers said, Octavia suffered a stab wound to the abdomen. She lost a lot of blood, and she’s received a few blood transfusions. The weapon perforated Octavia’s small intestine and she was given emergency surgery to repair that. When she woke up from surgery, she became combative, so we had to sedate her. We then performed a CT scan and found that Octavia has a number of other injuries, as well.”

“Like what?”

“ A skull fracture. Poorly healed displaced fractures to her right radius and ulna, a humeral head fracture in her left arm, a broken tailbone, shattered kneecaps, a left tibial fracture and 2 fractured ribs. Bruising and lacerations over a large portion of her body. Her weight is low and it also…” she sighs. “Appears that Ms. Blake was likely recently sexually assaulted. We’ve collected her clothing and samples including fingernail clippings and swabs to use in a trial if that is desired. We needed to prep her for surgery, but I didn’t want that valuable evidence lost. ”

Raven’s mind is reeling, but trying her best to remain composed. “Can I see her?”

“Yes. First, I have some papers for you to sign. I need consent to use the evidence I collected, including pictures of bruises and lacerations, in a rape kit. I also need consent to further treat Octavia.”

Raven nods. “Of course.”

“And I have a psychiatrist, Dr. Warren, who has been assigned to help Octavia and you in her journey to health. She wanted to discuss a few things with you before you see Octavia.”

“Okay.”

Dr. Griffin gets up and goes out to the waiting room, coming back with a blonde woman in slacks and a purple sweater.

“This is Dr. Warren.”

“Hello, Raven.”

“Hi. I would really like to see my girlfriend.”

The woman nods. “Of course. I just wanted to go over what we might expect to see from Octavia.”

“Okay.”

“Octavia hasn’t woken up since she’s been in the hospital. We don’t know exactly what went on in that house, but from her injuries and the 911 call, we know there was abuse happening. Prolonged abuse and captivity can be extremely taxing to the mind and can result in many different disorders. For instance, post traumatic stress disorder is something we would expect to see from her.”

Raven nods.

“She will most likely be anxious when she comes to. She has a head injury, which our neurologist can tell you more about, but it may cause some confusion or memory loss.”

“Are you saying she might not know who I am?”

“No, I wouldn’t expect that. But she may not remember calling 911 and she might be confused how she got to the hospital. She may be upset or fearful. She could have speech problems or emotional outbursts related to the head injury. A lot of power was taken away from her in that home, and so as Octavia recovers, it’s important to give her as much control over her circumstances as possible.”

“Okay.”

“That means that if for some reason she doesn’t want to see you, or only wants to see you for a short time, it is very important for you to respect that.”

“Why wouldn’t she want to see me?”

“It’s just a possibility to keep in mind. She has experienced a lot of trauma. She may be embarrassed or feel like you might not understand.”

“Okay, I’ll respect that. Just please, can I see her?”

The psychologist nods. “I’ll bring you to her room.”

“Thank you.”

The psychiatrist leads her to the ICU and to a small, curtained glass room in one corner of the bay.

“Raven?”

“Yeah?”

“Go slow. It’s a lot to take in.”

The psychiatrist opens the door and Raven stops breathing for a few moments. Octavia,  _ her  _ Octavia, barely resembles herself. She’s pale and sickly thin, her tangled, dirty hair is long; almost down to her waist. She has bruising on her eye and forehead and her face looks sharper and more angular than Raven’s ever seen it. Her nose is bent to one side, something the doctor had failed to mention; maybe she lost track. Raven draws closer to the bed as the tears that she’s been holding back all night finally start to fall. Octavia’s skin is covered in straight scars as well as eraser-sized, mottled circular scars. There are leads disappearing under her hospital gown that Raven suspects are monitoring her heart. Her left arm is in a sling and her right arm is sitting at an odd angle. Raven vaguely remembers the doctor saying something about fractures that didn’t heal right.

“I’ll leave you two alone. Let me know if you have any questions.”

She nods and traces Octavia’s cheek with her finger.

“Hey, love. I’ve missed you so much.” She’s about to pick up Octavia’s hand when she notices that her wrist has thick band-like abrasion, like it had been in some sort of cuff that she fought against. There’s a band of blue and purple bruising around her neck, too. Raven’s stomach turns, and she runs to the wastebasket near the door to throw up, bracing herself on the doorframe. When the last of the bile is gone, she lifts her head, catching her breath. She wipes her mouth and turns back toward Octavia’s bed, pouring herself some water into a styrofoam cup from the pitcher by the bedside and swishing it in her mouth. Glancing at Octavia again, she suddenly realizes that no one has called Bellamy. She grabs her phone and quickly finds his contact information.

“Hello?”

“Bellamy.”

“Hey.”

“Um, I’m at the hospital.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. But… they found Octavia.”

“What?” She can hear a chair slide and she’s sure he jumped to his feet.

“I’m at the hospital with her.”

“Is she okay?”

“No.” Her voice wavers.

“Where has she been? I’m coming. What hospital is she at?”

“St. Cosmas in Rockford. She’s in the ICU, room 613.”

“I’m getting in my car now. What happened to her?”

“Not while you’re driving.”

“Raven.”

“ _ Not  _ while you’re driving.”

“Fine. I’ll see you soon.”

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia wakes up for the first (and second) time.

Bellamy rushes into the room, but stops when he sees his sister with her bruises, scars, mangled arm and gaunt face.

“Oh my god.”

Raven doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.

“What happened to her?”

Raven steadies herself before starting. “She… she was a prisoner. Some guy had her and two other girls chained up in his house. He hurt her.”

He’s silent, shaking slightly.

“Who? Is he in jail?”

“His last name is Emmerson. They didn't say his first. He’s getting treatment here.”

“What?!” He whips around, enraged. “They have him in the same hospital as the women he hurt?”

“I told the police I didn’t want him here. They said he was castrated; lost a lot of blood, and nearly strangled to death. They think Octavia did it.”

Bellamy looks sick at the implications of Octavia’s actions. He turns back to his baby sister and rubs the top of her hand gently. He notices she has dried blood under her fingernails and all her hand bones are sticking out prominently.

“They’ll send him to jail as soon as he’s healthy enough. She can’t know he’s here, Bellamy.”

“What?” He had gotten lost in his own thoughts.

“She can’t know that psychopath is here. He’s headed to jail as soon as he’s stable, so let’s just say he’s in jail now. Okay?”

He nods. 

“She looks terrible. She’s so skinny. Did they say if she’s okay? Why is she in the ICU?”

“Bell, she’s really hurt. I can’t even remember everything that the doctor said. She said both arms were broken in different places. The right one is healed, but didn’t heal right. That’s why it… looks like that. She has shattered knee caps. I don’t know how that even happens. She has a stab wound that went into her intestine. They had to do surgery on it. I can’t remember anything else.”

“Did the doctor say when she’ll wake up?”

“No. Her body’s probably pretty exhausted. Dr. Griffin said she had a skull fracture and she might have concussion symptoms.”

He nods, gently tucking a strand of Octavia’s greasy hair behind her ear. 

“I wish we could clean her up a little bit.”

“I know, me too.”

Bellamy lets out a shaky sigh. 

They both end up in chairs staring at Octavia for a couple of hours. Doctors and nurses come in and out to check Octavia and change out IV bags. Raven begins to doze when she hears a whimper. She jolts awake and rushes over to the bed.

“Hey, O it’s me.”

She whimpers again, raspily.

“It’s Raven. Can you open your eyes for me, baby?”

Octavia lets out a little sigh.

“Can you wake up for me?”

Wincing and raising an eyebrow, she finally opens her eyes.

“Hey.” Raven says, voice breaking.

She glances up at her.

“Hi baby. You’re safe now.” Raven glances to see where Bellamy is. He must have gone to get coffee.

Octavia starts breathing more heavily.

“You’re at the hospital, you’re safe.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, her breath coming out in a sob.

“It’s okay.”

She’s silent and still for a long moment before another harsh sob breaks free.

“Octavia, try and calm down, honey.”

Octavia heaves for breath in between sobs. Raven starts to get worried and grabs the remote on Octavia’s bed, signalling for a nurse. It’s only a few moments before one comes in.

“She just woke up. She’s freaking out.”

The nurse tries to calm her, but she’s barely breathing and one of the monitors she’s hooked to is screaming. The nurse ends up sticking a syringe in her IV and pushing something to calm her down. As Octavia mellows out, Raven holds her hand tightly, willing her to look at her; to show some sign that she’s going to be alright. But eventually her eyes just close.

“When will she wake up again?”

“The valium will wear off in 4-6 hours, though she might not wake up right when it wears off.”

“I don’t understand what happened. She just started freaking out.”

“Her body and mind have been through a lot. It’s going to take some time to adjust.”

Raven nods and the nurse leaves. Just then, Bellamy comes in.

“She woke up.”

“She did? What did she say? What happened?”

“She didn’t say anything. She freaked out. She was crying really hard; barely breathing. I called in the nurse and she ended up sedating her.”

“Did she understand that she was in the hospital? That she’s away from that monster?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will she wake up again?”

“Four to six hours. At least, that’s how long the sedation will last.”

Bellamy can’t help thinking, despite himself, that if he had been there, maybe he could have helped her calm down. He doesn’t say anything though, and gives Raven a pat on the back. 

“She’ll be okay. It’ll just take some time”

__________________________________________________________________________

Raven finally gets a few hours of sleep, as does Bellamy. The two of them are exhausted.

Octavia begins to stir again at 10am.

“O, wake up for us,” Bellamy says. He’s sitting next to her bed in a chair, rubbing her right hand.

She makes a small noise in the back of her throat.

“Come on, baby,” Raven murmurs.

She grimaces, then opens her eyes. They widen as she slowly looks around. After a few moments, she tries to get up, wincing and clutching her abdomen.

“It’s okay, hon. Just relax.”

She mutters something and tries to get up again, Bellamy carefully holds her back by her uninjured shoulder.

“You’re hurt, O. Try not to move too much.”

“W-where… ” Her voice is strained and trembling.

“You’re in the hospital.”

She starts crying again, but it’s gentler this time. 

“What town?” Her voice cracks.

“Rockford.”

“Is he dead?”

It takes Raven a second to realize who Octavia is talking about. “No, love. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?” Her voice cracks again and the pitch goes from low to high, then her voice cuts out. “I held on for so long. Why isn’t he dead?” Her breathing picks up. 

“I don’t know.”

“Try and take a deep breath, O.” Bellamy says.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in jail.”

“I hurt him. He would have needed a hospital.”

“He’s not here. He’s in jail.” Raven says firmly. She feels a pang of guilt at lying to her girlfriend, but it’s for her own good.

Octavia cries harder and Raven squeezes her hand.

“You’re safe, love.”

“I’m gonna—” Octavia covers her mouth, making a garbled noise. Raven doesn’t quite bring the emesis basin up quick enough to avoid Octavia getting bile down the front of her hospital gown. She doesn’t have anything in her stomach to throw up, so once the bile is gone she ends up dry heaving for a while before things settle down. She moans in pain. Bellamy presses the call button and a nurse answers.

“Can I help you?”

“Um, Octavia just threw up on herself. Could we get a new gown for her?”

“Sure. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

“The doctor said you have a head injury.” Raven says gently to Octavia. “Does your head hurt?”

“Yeah.” She rasps. “And my stomach. Are the other girls here? Are they okay?”

“Yeah. They’re hurt too but they’ll be okay.”

Octavia lip quivers and she starts sobbing again.

“It’s okay, O.” Her brother says, squeezing her hand.

“Baby, I know you’re not feeling good. Try to calm down, okay?” Raven tries to make eye contact, but the woman won’t look at her. “O?”

A nurse comes in, takes a look at Octavia’s heart monitor, which shows her heart rate at almost 180 beats per minute, and quickly pulls a syringe out of one of the drawers.

“Octavia? Can you tell me what’s going on?”

She’s curled in on herself as much as she can be with her injuries, sobbing and unresponsive.

“Octavia, are you in pain?”

“She said she is,” Raven confirms.

All Octavia does is whimper, and after a pause, the nurse twists a syringe onto the extension of her IV line and pushes something, then twists another syringe on and pushes that too. 

Octavia slowly stops crying, watching Raven as her eyelids grow heavy.

“You just rest, O. Bell and I will be here when you wake up. You’re safe here.”

When they’re finally sure she’s asleep, they share a look and Bellamy gestures toward the hallway while the nurse gets ready to change Octavia’s sick-covered gown. Raven stifles a groan as she gets up and follows Bellamy out. She’s been sitting too long and her hip is hurting.

“Not really the warm reunion I was hoping for,” Bellamy says.

Raven lets out a mirthless laugh. 

“Nope.”

“She’ll be okay. Just needs time.”

Raven nods. 

“I need to walk around or my hip is going to get stiff. Do you need coffee?”

“God, yes.”

“I’ll be back with some. Call me if anything happens.”

Raven starts walking at a brisk pace that makes her hip ache. Her jaw hurts from clenching, but she’s terrified if she lets up that her lip will quiver. Octavia and she have been together since high school. They’ve been with each other through Raven’s injury, through Octavia and Bellamy’s move out of their mom’s house. It hurts so badly for Raven to see her girlfriend so unlike herself and it  _ terrifies _ her that she doesn’t even know all that Octavia has been through. As she walks, it becomes more and more difficult to keep her composure. When her emotions finally rise to the surface, she’s outside and she sits down on a bench suddenly, a shuddering sob forcing itself out of her mouth. 

“Raven?”

It’s Dr. Griffin.

Raven covers her mouth with a hand, trying to suppress more sobs. 

“Sorry. I’m fine. It’s just--”

“You’re not fine. And you shouldn’t be. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to see your loved one like this.”

Raven sniffs and wipes tears off her face. 

“She’s so scared and disoriented. I just want her to feel safe.”

“I know. She’ll get there.”

She takes a moment to collect herself. “Will she? After everything that man did to her--God knows how much--will she ever really feel safe?”

“I suppose we can’t know for sure. But I know it’ll get better than it is now; she’ll get better.”

She nods, sniffling.

“Thanks Dr. Griffin.”

“You can call me Abby. And any time. Please feel free to ask as many questions as you need to. We will figure out what Octavia needs and help her recover.”

“Thanks.”

Raven goes back inside and stops at the cafe, getting a couple of cups of coffee to bring back. She sees a few people with flowers or balloons walking toward the inpatient part of the hospital and wishes helping Octavia get better could be as easy as getting her a “get well soon” present. She carries the drinks back to the elevators and makes it up to the ICU. Bellamy thanks her for his coffee. A nurse is taking Octavia’s vitals.

“How’s she doing?”

“Heart rate’s still pretty high. It’s been high ever since she got here. We’ve done an echo and EKG and they came back okay, so we’re guessing it’s anxiety-related. A cardiologist will be seeing her sometime in the next few days. Blood pressure’s okay. Temp is good. Weight is quite low.”

“What does she weigh?” Bellamy asks.

“87 lbs.”

“Jesus. We’ve gotta pack the calories on.”

“Actually, the doctor’s probably going to have us start her pretty slowly. If she goes from starving to eating big meals it can throw off her electrolytes and be pretty dangerous.”

Raven sits back down and grabs Octavia’s hand. 

“Love you, O.” Raven whispers.

Octavia lightly squeezes her hand and Raven is given a glimmer of hope that maybe the old Octavia is still in there somewhere.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are writer fuel!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia sees doctors, talks a little bit more, and gets cleaned up.

Octavia wakes up again several hours later and Bellamy and Raven do their best to create a calm atmosphere.

“Hey sweetheart,” Raven says. “How’re you doing? Are you in any pain?”

Octavia nods, then winces, Raven guesses, from the bruising on her neck.

“Okay, we’ll get you some more pain meds.” 

Fortunately, a nurse is already on her way in the door.

“Well, good to see you awake again. How’re we feeling?”

“She said she’s in pain,” Bellamy says.

“Alright. We can do more Dilaudid. I just need to get it. I’ll be back in a few.”

“Do you need anything else, O? Are you thirsty?” 

“Actually, she’s on fluid restrictions right now because of her intestinal injury,” the nurse says. “Nothing by mouth for 24 hours.”

“Oh, okay,” Raven says, feeling bad she offered Octavia something she couldn’t have. The nurse leaves and Octavia looks around, squinting.

“How did I get here,” Octavia asks.

“You called 911. The police came and took you by ambulance.”

“Oh.” Octavia’s affect is rather flat. She seems to be using a lot of concentration to figure things out. “And… the man. He’s…”

“In jail.” Raven says. A pang of worry bubbles up in her chest. “How’s your head, honey?”

“Hurts. How… How long was I…”

“You’ve been unconscious for almost a day besides when you woke up before,” Raven supplies.

“No. How long was I there?”

Raven glances to Bellamy. They’re both silent for a little too long.

“Just tell me.”

“Um, it’s been almost 4 years.”

Octavia blinks and nods, a fine tremor running through her body.

The nurse knocks on the doorway and Octavia startles, then moans and clutches her abdomen.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I’ve got your pain medicine and some glycerin swabs in case your mouth is dry.”

Octavia nods. As the nurse pushes her pain medicine and enters it in the computer, Octavia stares at the swabs. She picks one up, but doesn’t bring it toward her mouth. Raven wonders if Octavia can even bend her right arm with the way it’s maladaptively healed. 

“O, do you need some help?”

She nods.

Raven grabs one of the swabs and brings it to Octavia’s mouth. She nods her thanks.

Dr. Griffin comes in a few minutes later.

“Hello Octavia, I’m Abby Griffin. I’m a doctor. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” she says around a glycerin swab. Raven takes it out of her mouth and sets it on the napkin on her bedside table.

“Well, I’m not sure how much Raven and Bellamy have filled you in. You came to us yesterday at about 11am. You had emergency surgery for a wound in your abdomen. We had to track down your information to find Raven. You’re in the ICU right now, but hopefully you’ll be able to move down to a lower ward soon. You’re probably going to need some additional surgery while you’re here, but we want to give your body a chance to recover for at least a couple of days before we operate again.”

“More surgery?”

“You have a number of injuries, some older, some newer, that need attention in order for you to be as functional as you can be. You have several breaks in your right arm that didn’t heal very well. You’d have some more mobility with a surgery to straighten it out. You also have shattered kneecaps that didn’t heal well. Your other injuries should heal on their own.”

Octavia glances at her questioningly.

“You have some partially healed broken ribs, a break high on your left arm, and a skull fracture. That’s what they picked up on x-ray anyway.”

She nods.

“Were you having any trouble walking or moving around before your puncture wound?”

Octavia’s face goes blank and she stares at the door in the room, not answering.

“We can discuss more later, I just wanted to introduce myself.”

Octavia doesn’t say anything as Abby leaves. She dozes for a while.

There’s a knock on the doorframe and Octavia jolts awake, unable to hide the pain this causes in her broken shoulder, her ribs, and her abdomen.

“Octavia, I’m Dr. Warren,” the petite woman says. “I’m a psychiatrist here at St. Cosmas.”

Octavia blinks but doesn’t otherwise react.

“The police would like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright.”

When Octavia doesn’t respond after a moment, Bellamy leans in. “O, do you want to talk with the police?”

After a moment, she nods minutely, and two officers are escorted in by the psychiatrist.

“Ms. Blake, were you being held against your will by Mr. Emmerson?”

She looks around like someone will tell her if she can answer. Raven nods reassuringly and Octavia hesitantly nods.

“Did he hurt you physically?”

It’s a long moment before she says “yes” in her raspy voice.

“Did he inflict any of the injuries you currently have?”

“All of them.”

“Do you have reason to believe that Mr. Emmerson would be a harm to others or try to run away if he is not held in prison until his trial?”

“Yes,” she says after a moment. She’s getting shaky.

“I think Octavia could use a break,” Dr. Warren says.

“Okay. We’ll come back for more questions later.”

Raven resists the urge to hold Octavia. She looks so small and scared.

“How are you feeling,” Bellamy asks.

She looks down, thinking. “Hurts.”

“What does?”

“Just… everything.”

“Okay.”

Raven reaches toward her and Octavia flinches reflexively. 

“I’m just getting the remote to get a nurse in here.” She waits till Octavia nods, then slowly reaches and presses the button. She pulls her hand back and fidgets with her brace until the nurse comes. Once Octavia’s gotten more pain meds, she pulls her blankets up and yawns.

“I love you, O.” Raven murmurs. 

Octavia nods and holds out her right hand. Raven reaches to hold it.

Bellamy gets a text, but doesn’t look at it. A few moments later, another text flies in, but he still ignores it. Then someone calls him.

“Phone.” Octavia murmurs.

“I want to be here.”

“Go.”

He sighs. They all know it’s the fire station calling him out to an out of control fire. 

“Go,” She insists, “I’ll be here.”

“Okay.”

He stands up, reaching over slowly to squeeze Octavia’s right hand before picking up the phone and walking out.

A few minutes later, Abby comes in.

“Hello Octavia, how are you feeling?”

She stares at the doctor, who waits for a long moment.

“Does your head hurt?”

“Yeah.” She says after a moment’s pause.

“How about your abdomen?”

“Yeah.”

“Do the pain meds seem to be helping?”

“Some.”

I’d like to take a look at your abdominal wound and see how it’s healing.

Octavia nods.

“Alright, if you don’t mind, I’m going to lift up your gown.”

Octavia looks down at the floor.

Raven sees that she’s wearing disposable underwear. She recalls that one of the police officers had said she was in a state of undress when she had been found and wonders if she had been given any clothing at all in Emerson’s house. Raven types in a list on her phone of things she needs to bring from home or buy: **underwear for O. Size x-small? Maybe children’s size?**

She looks back up and sees that Octavia’s abdomen is covered in dark purple bruises and some raised scars as well as some curved, indented scars.

Abby asks, “do you know how much of this bruising was there before you got your puncture injury?”

“Before I got stabbed,” Octavia asks, an edge to her voice.

“Y-yes.”

“A lot of this was already there.” She trails off and looks away.

“Okay. I’m going to take the dressing off your wound.” 

Octavia doesn’t move or talk as Abby carefully removes the dressing. There’s a line of neat stitches with heavier bruising around it under the bandage.

“It looks to be healing well. We’ll keep checking on it. Your neurologist is going to come see you soon for an exam.”

She just stares.

“Is there anything else you want or need?”

Octavia shakes her head.

“How about some food?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. What was your diet like before you came to the hospital?”

She hesitates. “Not much.”

“Can you give me an idea of what you ate in a typical day?”

“Um… It depended... A few bites of leftovers…. Not much.” She takes pauses between each short utterance and Raven wonders what’s going on in her head.

“So you definitely weren’t getting enough food.”

“No.”

“That’s what I suspected since your weight is so low. I’m going to start you on a pretty simple diet and we’ll work up to normal meals. That way we can avoid an electrolyte imbalance. Your intestine is still healing, so expect some discomfort several hours after you eat.”

“Okay.”

  
  


An hour later, a tray arrives with broth, a mug of water with a tea bag, and a cup of lemon ice.

“Wow, Abby wasn’t kidding about simple.” Raven says.

“It’s fine.” She stares down at the food for a minute, and Raven suddenly realizes with Octavia’s injuries, she can’t feed herself.

“Hey O, can I help you?”

She nods.

Raven picks up a plastic spoon and spoons some broth into her mouth. Octavia seems to be savoring each spoonful. Raven wonders what exactly she ate while she was Emmerson’s captive, but she doesn’t want to ask.

Octavia gets about halfway through the meal before saying she’s tired and falling asleep again. A few minutes later, the neurologist arrives and they have to wake O up again. 

“O, wake up.” Raven says, shaking her non-injured shoulder gently.

She startles awake and glances around the room.

“It’s okay. Your neurologist is here to see you.”

Octavia stares up at the man.

“I’m Dr. Kane,” the man says. “I’m going to ask you some questions and do a formal test to see how things are going with your cognition. I hear you got a pretty good bonk on the head.”

She nods.

“Do you know when the injury occurred?”

“Before I got here. Maybe a couple of days ago.”

“And how did it happen?”

“I… he slammed my head on the floor.”

The doctor looks at the back of her head. There’s a good sized lump back there, but no blood. It takes a surprisingly long time for the neurologist to complete his evaluation. He looks at the scans that had been taken, and asks her tons of questions, marking her answers on a sheet on his clipboard.

“Well, I don’t think you’ll have long term effects from your head trauma. You had somewhat delayed processing time. Your brain injury may be what’s causing that, but I’m not sure that’s it. I know that you’ve been through a lot, and psychological trauma and malnourishment can also take a toll on processing. Either way, I think it’ll get better with time.” 

Octavia glances at Raven, who nods.

“Have you noticed any memory trouble?”

“There was something she had to ask a couple of times to kind of get it into her head.”

“Okay. Sticky notes can be a good way to help with that. I’m going to suggest no reading or watching TV right now. You’ve probably got a pretty good headache anyway, so those things wouldn’t appeal to you anyway.”

Octavia nods.

“I’ll make sure you can get pain medication for your head. Ice might help if you want it. Your number one priority right now should be rest. You’ll be able to work back up to doing some more mentally strenuous activities, but don’t worry about those yet. Give it a good week or two, then build up slowly to things like watching TV or doing crosswords.”

“Okay.” Octavia has never been one to watch a lot of TV or do crosswords, so she and Raven share an amused look as the doctor leaves.

____________________________________________

  
  


She falls back asleep for a few hours and then startles herself awake, jumping and then moaning in pain.

“O, you okay?”

She looks around for a moment, trying to remember where she is. Then something flickers over her expression.

“I need a shower.” She says softly.

“Hon, I’m not sure Abby will let you. You have that stab wound that’s still healing.”

“Please... I can...  _ smell _ him.” An edge of desperation fills her voice.

Raven feels sick. “I’ll ask. It’s going to be alright. I’ll be back soon.” 

She quickly walks off to find a nurse. She ends up seeing Abby and approaches her.

“Abby, Octavia needs a shower.”

“There’s no way.” The doctor says, continuing to walk in the direction she was going.

“Please. She said she can _smell_ Emmerson on her. She can smell her kidnapper and rapist.”

Abby stops, thinking for a moment.

“She can’t be submerged because of her abdominal wound. But I could have one of the nurses do a sponge bath and change her into a new gown. Maybe even wash her hair since she doesn’t have an open wound on her head, just bruising.”

“Anything is better than nothing.” 

“I’ll let the nurses know.”

“Thank you.”

  
  


An hour later she helps the nurse and orderly bathe Octavia. When they have her lean forward to wash her back, Raven clutches a hand over her mouth to hold in her gasp. Octavia is more skeletal than she had even looked under the hospital gown, with every vertebra and rib visible. The woman’s whole back is covered in scraggly, raised scars, and peppered with a few uneven, mottled ones. There are two large, green and yellow bruises, which Raven assumes are where Octavia’s broken ribs are. There are also newer looking, red, straight marks on her low back. She doesn’t want to guess what those are from. When they wash her front, Raven can’t help noticing the bruises on her chest and sides and scabby burns on her sternum. She tries not to look too long, unsure how best to support Octavia. They wipe her around her catheter, but tell her it has to stay in for now. Octavia gazes vacantly at the door as they bathe her, totally checked out. For her hair, they transfer her to a chair so that they can spray her head with the shower head without the rest of her body getting wet. It’s pretty rough when they ask her to scoot to the edge of the bed so they can transfer her to the chair, and Raven can tell that her injuries are really hurting her. They detangle her long, thin hair and shampoo and condition it.  Finally, she’s in a fresh hospital gown, hair blow-dried. “You feeling a little better?” Raven asks. 

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

“I--I know I’m a lot of work right now.”

“There is nothing I’d rather be doing. I can’t even describe how much I missed you.”

“Missed you too.”

“And want to give you the space that you need to heal, so please let me know what I can do. But… can I hug you?”

She nods and Raven reaches to hug her gently, not touching her injured shoulder. Octavia can feel Raven let out a shaky breath.

“Love you.” She says softly.

“Love you too, O.”

  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Octavia had been given clear liquids again the night previous, and in the morning for the first time, she’s given solid food. It’s only cereal and milk but she’s excited.

“Want some help with your spoon?” Raven asks gently.

Octavia nods.

“You still a dry cereal girl?”

She nods again.

“Alright.” She said with a smirk.

“Don’t mock.”

“Fine.”

She brings bites of cereal to her mouth and holds the milk carton up so she can sip from the straw. 

After she’s finished with breakfast, she’s transferred down to a different ward. This room is a little larger, with a window facing out on a wooded area. Octavia can’t stop staring out it, and Raven wonders if she had gotten to see outside at all in the last four years.

Octavia is assessed by physical and occupational therapists that morning and Raven is shocked by how weak she is. When asked, she reveals that she hasn’t been able to walk for some time, even before her kneecaps were broken. Her range of motion in her legs and right arm is pitiful. The PT is going to have her do gentle leg lift exercises and not work on anything else till her stab wound and injuries have a chance to heal more and she’s able to have additional surgery. The OT has her try to write on a piece of paper. She says the goal will be for them to work on things like feeding herself, brushing her teeth, and buttoning things, but they have to wait till after her surgery and recovery. When the occupational therapist asks her if she had a way to feed herself before she came to the hospital, Octavia flushes and doesn’t answer.

Raven is starting to realize just how long physical recovery is going to take. And that’s not to mention mental recovery. A counselor knocks on the door after she’s had an hour to rest from her post-therapy exhaustion. Octavia jolts awake and Raven puts a steadying hand on her arm.

“It’s okay.”

“Hello Octavia, I’m Nylah. I’m a counselor here at the hospital. I apologize, I didn’t mean to startle you.” 

She glances at her fleetingly, then looks back to Raven, who gives her arm a gentle squeeze.

“Would it be okay if I ask you some questions?”

She doesn’t respond.

“O?” Raven prompts gently.

Reluctantly, Octavia nods.

“Why don’t I tell you a little about myself. I’ve been working at the hospital for 3 years. I graduated from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I have two dogs that I like spending a lot of time with.” The woman takes a phone out of her pocket, swipes through a few pages, and holds up a picture of the two dogs for Octavia to see. The girl gives a small smile.

The counselor sits down. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.”

Niylah nods, waiting for her to say more

“Things are… a lot.”

“You’re overwhelmed?”

“Yeah.”

“What are some of the things that are overwhelming you?”

“The people… in and out.”

“That sounds tiring. What else?”

“Um… expectations.”

“Whose expectations?”

“Everyone’s.”

“Do you want to tell me more about that?”

“No.”

“Alright. I’ve noticed you’re not talking a lot. Why do you think that is?”

“It’s… hard.”

“To talk?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Octavia looks toward the door, a fine tremor running through her.

“You don’t have to answer anything you’re not comfortable answering.”

Octavia nods and looks down.

“Dr. Griffin and Dr. Warren gave me a basic rundown of your history, but I would much rather hear it from your perspective. I do realize that takes a lot of trust, though, so we can start small. For breakfast today, I had eggs and toast. What did you have?”

Octavia raises an eyebrow, but replies, “Cheerios. Milk on the side.”

“Have you always had your cereal and milk separately?”

“Yep.”

“Interesting.”

Octavia half-smirks.

“And who do you have with you in the hospital?”

“Raven. My girlfriend.”

“Nice to meet you, Raven.”

Raven nods. 

“So Octavia, if you could have any meal you wanted right now, what do you think you would have?”

She thinks for a long moment. Niylah is about to move on, when Octavia pipes up.

“Strawberries and steak.”

“That sounds delicious. Maybe once you’re on more normal diet recommendations, Raven could bring those in for you.”

Octavia nods.

Niylah looks at the clock. 

“Well, it’s almost time for me to go. It was great meeting you, Octavia.”

“Bye.”

  
  


__________________________________________________________________

Bellamy comes back around mid-day. He looks exhausted and his hair and face are slightly charred.

“Bell…” Octavia says when she sees him.

“Hey. Sorry, the fire was pretty bad.” His voice is hoarse.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Your mask… you…”

He sighs. “Yeah. I gave my mask to a kid I was pulling out of the building.”

“Smoke inhalation?”

“Yeah.”

“Burns?”

“A few.”

“Bell.”

“I know. I’m more worried about you, though. You’re barely talking and skinny as fuck.”

“I’m alright.”

He sighs and sits down.

“O, you should be getting lunch soon,” Raven says.

“Feel sick.”

“Yeah?”

She nods. “Cramps.”

“Is it your period?”

Octavia looks down, agitated.

“What?”

“Haven’t had that.”

“In how long?”

She shrugs, then winces and clutches her stomach.

“Do you want to talk with a nurse?”

“No.”

Octavia suddenly clutches her mouth. Raven looks around to find an emesis basin, and finds one, but not before Octavia throws up all over herself.

“Oh hon,” Raven says, rubbing her right shoulder gently.

Octavia moans at the pain in her ribs as she heaves. 

When it’s finally over, Bellamy wipes Octavia’s mouth with a tissue and brings a straw to her lips for her to wash her mouth out.

“Do you feel any better?”

“Stomach really hurts.”

“I’m going to get a nurse in here to check that out and help you clean up.”

Raven cautiously reaches for the bed remote, making sure Octavia can see what she’s doing. A few minutes later, Anya, her nurse, arrives.

“Hey Octavia, Raven says you’ve got some abdominal pain. Where does it hurt?”

She holds her stomach, then points toward her abdomen right in the place where her stab wound is.

“Alright. I’m going to get you into a fresh gown and then I’ll have a look at your abdominal wound.”

“Bell, leave.” Octavia says. 

The man nods and gets up. Raven and Anya help Octavia sit up and lean forward, and the girl clutches her head, wincing.

“Are you dizzy?”

“It’s fine.”

Anya glances at Octavia’s heart rate, which had just spiked from 50 beats per minute to 120.

“We’re going to lay you back down.”

“No, it’s gone now.”

“Do you feel okay? Are you anxious? Your heart rate is pretty high.”

“I’m okay.”

“Okay.” Anya carefully unsnaps the gown at her injured shoulder without jostling it. She then takes it off the other shoulder and as soon as it goes past her abdomen, Raven spots it.

She’s bleeding.”

The nurse spots the blood soaking Octavia’s bandaged abdomen and quickly goes to the drawer to get gauze pads.

“Octavia, it looks like the wound in your abdomen opened back up when you threw up. I’m going to page a doctor to sew it back up.”

Octavia bursts into tears. Anya quickly puts a new gown over Octavia, but keeps it tucked up high above the wound and then quickly pages the doctor.

“Honey, it’s okay.” Raven says, picking up Octavia’s hand in an attempt to comfort her.

Octavia stares down at her body, at the scars all over her stomach and sides. She feels like she’s going to be sick again.

When the doctor takes off Octavia’s bandage, Raven gets her second glimpse at the stab wound. Some of the stitches have popped and she suddenly feels anger bubble up in her. She’s angry at the man who did this, who took Octavia away from her. She’s angry about how sick Octavia is. She’s angry at how helpless she feels.

“Rae,” Octavia interrupts her thoughts. 

“Yeah honey?”

“Can you... play with my hair? Like you used to?”

Raven runs her fingers through Octavia’s hair, massaging her head gently. She’s careful to avoid the back of Octavia’s head, where her head injury is.

With the stitches done, the medical staff finally leave them alone. Octavia looks over at Raven, then at the wall.

“He’d… He’d beat me.”

Raven looks at her, not speaking for fear that Octavia will clam up again.

“Wh-when I talked. Made a comment or asked a question. He’d hit me with things.”

Raven nods, picking up her right hand and holding it gently.

Octavia is silent for a long time, looking anywhere but at Raven, then says “Belts. A whip. Sometimes power cords.”

Raven feels sick, but forces herself to stay neutral and nod. She doesn’t want to burden Octavia with her heavy emotions when Octavia has so many of her own to deal with already.

“When I tried to get away, he used a golf club on my knees.”

Octavia doesn’t say anything more, and Raven doesn’t comment, figuring Octavia doesn’t want false comfort, she just wants someone to listen. She continues to hold her hand until she’s sure Octavia is asleep, then finally lets herself cry again.

Bellamy texts Raven, and she lets him know he’s okay to come back in. She composes herself a bit, wiping her eyes.

“How is she,” Bellamy asks softly.

“Okay. They repaired her stitches. She opened up a little bit, too,” Raven whispers.

Bellamy nods. “Good.” He hands Raven a cup of coffee, and she thanks him with a nod. Raven winces and rubs her forehead. 

“You okay?”

“Tension headache.”

“Do you want to take a break? Get some rest?”

Raven looks at Octavia. She doesn’t want to let her out of her sight.

“Not yet. It’s too soon.”

  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia sees a gynecologist. Niylah talks with Octavia AND Raven.

Later that day, a new doctor comes to see Octavia.

“Octavia, I’m Dr. Foster. I’m a gynecologist here at the hospital.”

Octavia stares stiffly at her.

“Dr. Griffin referred you to me concerning your reproductive health.”

Bellamy gets up. “Do you want me to leave, O?”

She nods.

“I’m going to go home and walk the dog and shower. I’ll be back later.”

“Okay.”

“Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” The doctor asks.

Octavia nods, but seems nervous.

“When was your last period?”

She looks down, thinking, then shakes her head.

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“A rough guess. Would you say it’s been gone for a year?”

“Longer.”

“Do you know if you’re pregnant?”

She looks stricken.

“No.” Raven says. “They did a test.”

Octavia relaxes slightly.

“Have you ever been pregnant?”

She’s silent and Raven can’t help but look over, terrified.

“Octavia?” The doctor says after a long pause.

“Yeah.”

“You have been pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I... don’t know.”

Raven is in shock. She had worried, wondered, but hearing it…

“Did you carry to term?” The doctor asks.

“No.”

“Did you terminate the pregnancy or miscarry?”

“Miscarried.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Have you been tested for STI’s recently?”

“I don't know.”

“Okay. Octavia, I think that it’s important that you have a pap smear. It doesn’t have to be today, but you definitely need one.”

“Today.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods.

“Alright. This kind of bed doesn’t allow me to do what I need to do, so I’m going to have an orderly bring you down to the clinic where we have exam tables.”

In 20 minutes, she’s being wheeled in her bed down to the clinic. Two nursing assistants help transfer her to the exam table and then leave. 

"Um, hon, Dr. Foster's going to want your underwear off for the exam. Can you get it or do you need help?"

"Help."

Raven carefully helps her, trying to preserve her modesty as much as she can. It's so strange to be four years out from where their relationship had been before. They had been living together. She remembers taking Octavia's underwear in a completely different context, both of them breathless and excited. Now, Octavia looks like she's about to cry and is shivering slightly.

“You alright, O?” Raven asks.

She nods.

The doctor knocks on the door and comes in.

“Alright, Octavia, let’s get you ready.”

The doctor helps her scoot to the edge of the bed. She covers her with a sheet, and pulls tools out of drawers and cabinets, quickly assembling what she needs. 

“Do you want me to explain what I’m doing?”

Octavia nods. 

“Okay, I’m going to put your legs in these stirrups, as long as it works for your knees. Just let me know if you’re in pain.”

She nods again. 

The doctor holds up a plastic contraption.

“This is a speculum. It holds open your vagina to allow me to get a swab of your cervix. Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

Octavia stiffens when the doctor starts putting the speculum in.

“Honey, you okay?” Raven asks.

She doesn’t respond. She’s staring at the door, unmoving.

“Octavia, do you want to stop?” the doctor asks. There’s no response.

“O.” Raven says, snapping her fingers and waving her hand in front of her face. The girl doesn’t react. Dr. Foster pulls her legs down from the stirrups and covers her up with the sheet.

“Baby, talk to me.” Raven says, squeezing Octavia’s hand. She still doesn’t respond, and the doctor pulls out her pager. 

“I’m going to get a psychiatrist down here.”

Raven nods.

  
  


Nylah ends up coming down along with the Dr. Warren, the psychiatrist. After several failed attempts at getting the girl to respond, they give her a large dose of valium, which finally makes Octavia close her eyes and relax.

“Will she be okay when she wakes up?” Raven asks Nylah.

“There’s no way to know. What she’s been through is extremely traumatic, and this may have brought back unpleasant memories for her.”

“What can I do for her? I don’t know how to help her.”

“You’re doing the right thing, staying by her side and being supportive. She may want space, and giving her that when she asks will be important too.” Nylah says.

She nods, biting her lip, and watching as nursing assistants transfer Octavia back into her bed and wheel her back to the ward.

  
  


Belamy is waiting in the room.

“What happened?”

“They were gonna do a pap smear. Octavia was, like, catatonic. She wouldn’t move or talk or respond to anything. They gave her a bunch of valium.”

Bellamy sighs. “That had to be traumatic for her.”

Raven nods.

“How is she gonna live like this, Bell? She’s probably going to take years just to heal physically. She’s barely talking. She told me Emmerson used to beat her whenever she talked. That’s why she’s so reluctant to talk.”

Bellamy’s nostrils flare. His clenched fists shake.

“I want to kill that asshole.”

“I know. Me too.” Raven winces and rubs the back of her neck.

“You okay?”

“Just a headache.”

“Raven, you haven’t left the hospital at all, have you?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you need a break? This a lot for anyone to handle.”

“Not now. Not when she’s like this. Maybe in a day or two if things are going okay. Just to get some fresh clothes and stuff. I could get some of her things, try and brighten the room a little.”

Bellamy nods.

  
  


A couple of hours later, when Bellamy is in the cafeteria grabbing himself and Raven some lunch, Octavia finally stirs.

“You’re okay, baby,” Raven says soothingly.

“What happened?" Her eyes are heavy-lidded and she's slurring slightly, an effect of the medication that still has a hold on her.

“Dr. Warren gave you valium.” 

“Why?”

“You were catatonic.”

“What?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“That’s okay.”

Octavia reaches her mangled right arm toward Raven, and she quickly reaches to hold her hand.

“How do you feel?”

“Pukey.” Octavia murmurs. 

Raven grabs the emesis basin, but the patient doesn’t end up vomiting. The basin is set down nearby, and Raven strokes Octavia’s hair. They stay like that till Nylah comes in and tries to talk about what happened. Octavia doesn’t say much; doesn’t remember much, so Raven and Niylah fill her in. She doesn’t seem agitated, just confused. But then Nylah asks what about the pelvic exam could have caused her to have that kind of reaction.

“I mean... you know.” Octavia stumbles over her words, still drugged and hazy.

“I think it’s important for you to say it.”

“I… he…” Raven squeezes her hand. Octavia is silent for a long time. “He… raped me.”

“Emmerson?”

She nods, rolling her eyes at the obviousness of the question.

“How often did that happen?”

“Pretty much every day,” Octavia says without feeling.

“How did that make you feel?”

“It didn’t make me feel anything after a while.”

Niylah nods. “We can numb ourselves to trauma over time. It’s a way to cope. How did it make you feel at first?”

“I’m tired,” she says quickly.

“You need a break?”

She nods.

“Okay. Thanks for letting me know. We’ll bring this up another time.”

Niylah asks her a few lighter questions to help regulate Octavia and then leaves. Shortly after, Octavia drifts back to sleep, the sedatives still making her drowsy. Raven gets up to stretch out her hip and take a walk. She waits till she’s in a quiet hallway before sitting down in a chair and covering her head with her hands. She’s not sure how Octavia is going to cope when she has to talk about her abuse at the trial for Emerson. She’s not sure how  _ she’s  _ going to cope. She rubs angrily at her forehead, at the headache that refuses to go away.

“Raven?”

She looks up. It’s Niylah.

“Oh, hey Niylah.”

“Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Just a headache.”

Niylah nods empathetically. “Octavia’s making good progress.”

Raven nods half-heartedly.

“How are you dealing with all of this?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I just know I need to be here for her.”

“It’s a lot to handle.”

“What kind of girlfriend would I be if I couldn’t handle it? I just… have to be here. Be strong for her. It doesn’t matter how I feel. She’s been through so much.”

“That sounds like a lot of pressure.”

“It’s not like any of this is her fault.”

“No, but that doesn’t negate the fact that this is a difficult thing for all involved and that it’s likely very stressful for you.”

“I feel like  _ I’m _ in therapy now.”

“Sorry. But have you considered it? It might be nice to have a neutral place you can unload your stresses and emotions about this situation.”

“What, with you? Isn’t that like a conflict of interest or something?”

“No, but it might be a little strange. I was thinking of a different counselor here. Or someone somewhere else. It might be helpful to have someone outside of the situation that you could talk to about this.”

Raven is silent for a moment. She’s hesitant to get involved with therapy. She didn’t exactly have a pleasant childhood and has spent her adult life trying to avoid thinking about it. But now that she’s dealing with Octavia’s intense and complicated situation on top of that and with the stress starting to manifest physically, it doesn’t sound like a terrible idea.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Okay. Any of our therapists could help you, but there’s one colleague of mine, Luna, who has an educational background in trauma. I think she and you might be a good personality fit as well.”

“Like I said, I’ll think about it.”

Niylah nods and smiles, then says her goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking about updating the rating of this story to M just because it handles such sensitive topics. If you have opinions about that let me know. Also, let me know what you'd like to see more of in this story!


	6. Chapter 6

On her fourth morning at the hospital, Octavia gets her biggest breakfast yet: eggs, bacon, a muffin, and some fruit. The doctor has been monitoring her carefully to check for something called refeeding syndrome, which can happen when a diet goes from very few calories to a lot too quickly. She’s excited about the food, particularly the fruit, but only ends up eating most of the fruit, half the eggs, and one slice of bacon before she’s too full to continue.

“Rae, where do you work now?” Octavia asks, holding her stomach as it tries to digest what she just ate.

“I work for an aircraft company, Ark Aircraft. I fix planes and do safety testing.”

“What about right now?”

“I’m taking time off.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I want to be here with you. But I do think I’m going to go home for a few hours today; grab some clothes and supplies. Is there anything you want while I’m there?”

She looks down, thinking “Uh…maybe a blanket?”

“Sure. Something soft and fuzzy?”

She nods, relieved that Raven is still in tune with her.

“Maybe your iPad?”

“No. I don’t want…” She struggles for words for a moment. “People…”

“You wouldn’t have to go on social media. I was thinking for games or books.”

“Oh. I guess.”

“Bell is on the job right now, but I’ll wait till he gets back before I leave.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do you  _ want _ to be alone?”

She pauses for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  
  


Their favorite nurse, Anya, pulls Raven aside when she’s getting coffee that day.

“Raven, I thought I should tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“They brought Emerson to jail today. He’s being held without bail. I heard it through the nurse grapevine.”

“Thank god.”

“I know.”

  
  
  


About 10:30 that morning, there’s a knock on the door. Octavia is startled by it as usual. 

“Come in,” Raven says after a moment.

A stranger in a business suit comes in.

“Hi, are you Octavia Blake?” The woman asks.

She nods.

“I’m Lexa Woods. I’m the district attorney.”

“Oh.”

“I’m Raven, her girlfriend. O, do you want me here?”

Octavia nods.

“I’m representing you in court and working on charges for Emmerson. The judge will be setting a trial date soon.”

“Okay.”

“I was hoping to get some information directly from you, if you’re up for it.”

“Like what?”

“Was there anyone helping Emmerson? Anyone who knew you were there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you know if you three were the only people he ever took?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you have awareness of how Emmerson mistreated the other women?”

“Yeah. I--” she hesitates, “heard them. He had the outer walls soundproofed, but not between rooms.”

“Can you tell me a little bit about how he treated you?”

“Uh… he hurt me. He beat me and, and raped me.”

“Were those frequent occurrences?”

She nods.

“What about food?”

“He didn’t give me much to eat.”

“Do you have an idea of what you weighed before you were kidnapped?”

“Like 130.”

“And now do you know what you weigh?”

“I think the orderly said 87 when I first got here. I just made it to 88.”

“That’s something we can use against him. You’re doing really great. Can I ask one more question?”

She nods.

“What were your living conditions like? Where did you sleep? Were you allowed around the house? Outside?”

She glances at Raven, who’s doing her best to stay neutral and not react, but is intently picking at a cuticle even though it’s already bleeding.

“I was... chained to the bed. Sometimes by my wrists and ankles. Sometimes just an ankle. I couldn’t leave my room except to go to the bathroom twice a day. He had a… a collar he’d put on me. Like a dog.” She looks down, flushing, eyes glassy.

Lexa nods. “Thank you for answering my questions. I know I came without prior warning. I won’t next time. We’ll work around your hospital schedule and how you’re feeling. I’m going to need you to tell me as much as you can about everything you remember, but we can wait till you’ve had a chance to recover a little more. Do you have any questions for me? Anything I can do?”

“Have you talked with the other two?”

“The other two women?”

She nods. “They’re okay?”

“They’re about as well as you are.”

She nods.

  
  


Raven ends up waiting for Bellamy to get there before she goes home. She can’t stop thinking on the way about Octavia. It’s weird going into her apartment. So much has changed since the last time she was there. She takes a shower in her own bathroom and it feels nice. She goes into her closet to one of the suitcases full of Octavia’s things. She hadn’t had the heart to unpack it when she moved to this apartment; it had been too painful. The clothes inside would be huge on Octavia now. Maybe someday they’ll fit her again. She does grab a few pairs of socks, knowing that the hospital socks can be uncomfortable. She finds another suitcase with some of Octavia's personal things and pulls out a blanket, her favorite perfume, and her iPad and charger.

Once she’s done at the house, Raven stops at Target for some food and clothes. She gets Octavia some underwear, trying to estimate her size without thinking too much about all the scars on her hips or the way her bones stick out. She grabs a few foods she knows Octavia likes, or at least, used to like: Oreos, a kind of cracker with lots of seeds in it, and a carton of strawberries. On the way back to the hospital, her headache comes back, throbbing and aching through her neck and the back of her head. She sighs and pops a few ibuprofen, then digs in her purse for a card Niylah had given her for the counseling scheduling line at St. Cosmas. She dials the number, pausing to look up at the road frequently, and finally makes the call.

  
  
  
  


Physical Therapy starts working with Octavia that afternoon on some core exercises which absolutely kill her wounded abdomen. This leaves Octavia sore and irritable.

“How’re you feeling?” Bellamy asks after the PT finally leaves.

She acknowledges him with a glare.

“Someone’s got her cranky pants on.”

She glowers.

“Maybe we should listen to some music? Always helped when you were a moody teenager.”

She perks up at this. 

“Are we thinking modern? Punk? Classic rock?”

“The Clash?”

“Sure.” He pulls up a playlist on his phone and they listen to the music in silence. Before long, an orderly comes in with food.

“Time for dinner, Octavia.”

Under the lid is a plate full of green beans, mashed potatoes, and chicken. Octavia’s mouth waters. Bellamy cuts the chicken into bite-sized pieces for her and brings one up to her mouth. 

She takes a nap after dinner. Her stomach is cramping again, but not nearly as bad as it had the other day. When she wakes up, it’s to Raven talking quietly with Bellamy.

“Hey.” 

“Hi love,” Raven says with a smile. She puts several bags onto Octavia’s lap, then realizes Octavia can’t really get the contents out with her mangled right arm and left one in a sling. The first thing she pulls out is Octavia’s perfume.

“I don’t know if you’ll still like the scent, but thought it’d be worth bringing it.”

“Are you saying I stink?” Octavia has a wry smile on her face.

“No. Just thought you might like to smell like something other than the hospital.”

“It’s a good thought.”

“Here, I’ll spray it on a tissue first, make sure you still like it.” Raven does so and lifts it up for Octavia to smell. She smiles.

“Yeah, I still like it.”

“Want me to spray some on you?”

“Sure.”

When Raven stands over her to do so, Octavia catches her arm with her right hand and gives it a squeeze in thanks. Her grip is weak, but the sentiment is effectively relayed. Next, Raven pulls out the food.

“Thought we could have a little feast.”

Octavia nods.

She pulls out the underwear after that.

“Because no one deserves to sit in that god-awful disposable underwear for longer than they have to.”

Octavia nods emphatically.

Last, Raven pulls out the soft purple blanket she had given Octavia on her last birthday before she was taken. She lays it over her girlfriend and it’s then that Octavia realizes that she’s missed several birthdays.

“What’s today?”

“October 10th, 2019. It’s Tuesday," Bellamy says.

“I’m 24,” She says tremulously.

“Yeah.”

Octavia can’t breathe. Her face contorts as she begins to cry soundlessly.

Raven bites her lip.

“O, take a breath,” Bellamy urges.

“I w-w-” she cries harder.

“Hey, what are you thinking about?” Raven glances at her heart monitor, then back at Octavia.

“I--I…” She shudders and sobs.

“O, love, you’ve gotta breathe. It’s okay to cry, but you’ve gotta breathe.” 

She doesn’t calm down, but Raven doesn’t want her to be sedated again.

“Hey, I’m going to come sit by you if that’s okay. Push me away if it’s not.” Raven sits on the edge of the bed slowly, watching for any signs that she’s making things worse.

“I’m going to touch your hand.” She says, and grasps her hand. “Now, I’m going to put your hand on my chest so you can feel me breathing.” She moves the girl’s hand slowly, giving her ample time to pull away if she wants to. "Can you try and follow my breaths?" They sit like that for several minutes, Octavia’s breaths slowly coming more easily. She’s still crying, but it’s gentler.

“Hon, do you want to tell me what you were thinking about that made you start crying so hard?”

“I wondered…” she takes a minute to continue, “what happened…”

“What happened?”

“To me.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“On my birthdays.”

“You mean while you were there? What happened on your birthdays?” Bellamy finally pieces it together.

She nods.

“I guess there’s no way to know for sure if you didn’t know the dates. Maybe it’s for the best?”

She nods, sniffling.

“We could celebrate your birthday now,” Raven suggests.

She ponders this.

“Bring in some cake, take pictures, maybe have a conga line.” 

“Just… Bell and you?”

“Yeah. And maybe some nurses and doctors?”

“Maybe.”

  
  
  


_______________________________________________________________________

  
  


The next day, it’s finally time for Octavia to have her surgeries. Doctors are going to wire the fractured pieces of her knees together and re-break and set her right radius and ulna in her arm so she’ll hopefully have more mobility. It shouldn’t be a terribly long surgery.

“You nervous, hon?” Raven and Anya are in the bathroom with Octavia, helping her wash with special antibacterial soap before the surgery.

“Not really. Are you?”

“A little,” Raven admits. “I just want everything to go well and for you to be able to move more.”

“Me too.”

“And I want you to be able to come home.”

“How’s that gonna… work?”

“I moved apartments a couple of years ago. I’m on the ground floor, so even if you’re in a wheelchair, it should be fine.”

She nods.

“I know you’ll have a lot of appointments… I’m still trying to figure that out. I’m using FMLA time right now for work. I’m happy I can do that, but eventually, I have to start making money again.”

“I could… go to a rehab place.”

“I don’t know if that’s a great idea, O. You need more than just physical care. We’ve been lucky to have mostly great nurses and doctors who have been pretty sensitive to your needs. We have no idea if the staff at a rehab facility would be the same way. And they don’t really have a lot of mental health services.”

“You’ve looked into this.”

Raven nods. Anya gets a nursing assistant to help her transfer Octavia from the shower chair she had been sitting on back to a wheelchair to bring her to her bed.

“You can totally tell me to butt out of this,” Anya says, “But have you thought about getting a home care assistant? You would definitely qualify for getting some money toward that, and they could drive you to appointments and make sure you’re doing okay, mentally and physically.”

“That’s a good thought,” Raven replies. “O, what do you think about that?”

“I’d just want to make sure it’s the right person. Like, if it was going to be Anya, I’d say absolutely.”

“Well…” Anya hesitates.

“What?” 

“I’ve actually been thinking about leaving the hospital. The politics are getting a little crazy here, and they’re cutting our benefits again. I love patient care, but the requirements of the hospital mean we get to spend so little time with patients.”

“Would you ever consider caregiving?”

“I actually would.”

“We would hire you. I mean, no pressure if you need to make a different choice, but if you want the job, it’s yours,” Raven says. Octavia nods.

“I’ll let you know what I decide.”

A nursing assistant gets ready to bring Octavia to her surgery and Bellamy gives her a careful hug. Then it’s Raven’s turn.

“O, can I give you a kiss on the forehead?”

She thinks for a moment. 

“On the cheek.”

Raven smiles and leans in to kiss her and feels Octavia move to kiss her cheek too.

“You’re gonna do great. We’ll look forward to seeing you on the other side of surgery, alright?”

Octavia nods and lets the nursing assistant wheel her away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying this story, leave a comment below and let me know! I have really appreciated your support and readership so far!


	7. Chapter 7

The surgery goes as planned. Octavia wakes up in some pain, but as usual, doesn’t mention it unless she’s asked. It’ll be about 6 weeks before she can try weight-bearing on her knees and start working on her arm’s range of motion again. In the meantime, she’s got splints for her knees and arm. 

Her orthopedist says it’s time for her to start using her left arm again. It’s been in a sling up till this point. There’s brown and green bruising that has slowly migrated from near the shoulder, where the break is, down to her elbow. The arm feels clumsy and stiff, but she’s grateful to have it back, particularly for doing things like eating and brushing her teeth.

  
  


Bellamy gets a text the next day as he’s hanging out with Octavia during Raven’s therapy appointment. 

“Hey, that was from Lincoln. He’s wondering if he can visit you.”

“Did you tell him I was here?”

“Yeah.”

She looks uncomfortable. “I don’t look good.”

“That’s okay. He was your best friend. He just wants to see you. But if you don’t want to, that’s okay too.”

She looks down for a few moments before nodding. “He can. Just… not too long.”

“Okay.”

It’s a few hours later and Octavia has finished lunch and endured the usual stomach pains, then fallen asleep. There’s a knock on the door and for once Octavia doesn’t wake up from the sound.

“Come on in, man.” Bellamy says as he opens the door.

Lincoln walks in tentatively. He stares at Octavia’s skinny, injured body.

“Oh my god.” He says softly.

“I know.” Bellamy says. “I’m trying to let her rest a little before PT comes.”

Lincoln nods. He goes over and sits down on a chair by the window. “She barely looks like herself.”

Bellamy nods.

They sit in silence for a few minutes.

“We should wake her up so she’s not too groggy for PT.”

Lincoln gets up and leans over the bed, reaching to gently squeeze her non-splinted arm.

“Hey, time to wake up.”

“Lincoln wait--” Bellamy says, realizing what Lincoln is doing.

Octavia’s eyes snap open. She barely glances at Lincoln leaning over her before she flails and rolls off the bed. She lands on the floor in a quivering, whimpering heap.

“Shit O,” Bellamy says, jumping up, but not wanting to get too close for fear of scaring her further. “It’s okay.”

She’s hyperventilating, curled into a ball as much as possible with her splints, covering her head with her free arm. Anya storms into the room moments later, the bed alarm having sent her running. Lincoln is backing up, horrified that he upset her.

“What’s going on?” She asks Bellamy.

“Her friend Lincoln woke her up. He must have scared her.”

“Alright, I need you to leave,” she orders Lincoln. He nods and backs out of the room. Anya gestures for Bellamy to come closer to Octavia.

“O, it’s Bellamy. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

It takes several minutes for her to so much as lift her head.

“Hey.” He says gently. “Lincoln woke you up and it must have scared you. Remember, he was coming to visit?”

She nods slightly, snot and tears dripping down her face.

“Let’s get you back in bed, hey?”

She nods again. As he and Anya help her back up into bed, she lets out a pathetic whimper. Anya comes over to the bedside.

“Octavia, I’m going to make sure you didn’t pull any of your electrodes or lines off.” She waits till the girl nods her head, then gently turns Octavia’s arm, checking the IV line. She checks under the hospital gown for a moment to see that some of the electrodes on her chest have been ripped off. She gets new ones and sticks them on, attaches the wires that lead to the telemetry box which keeps track of her heart rate and rhythm. Octavia is still teary and shaky.

“Hey, you took kind of a nasty fall. Does anything hurt?”

“J-just the usual.”

“Do you want to take something to help you calm down?”

She rubs at her face, then nods.

“I’ll grab you some ativan. Try and take some deep breaths, okay?”

Octavia nods. 

  
  


When Raven returns from her appointment, Octavia isn’t asleep, but is visibly relaxed.

“You look… drugged.”

Octavia nods, scowling.

“What happened?”

“Lincoln came,” Bellamy says, “He startled her.”

“I freaked out,” Octavia counters.

“How come?”

“He was leaning over me,” Octavia says with a shaky sigh, running her left hand through her long hair. “The deep voice with the leaning and touching me… It reminded me too much of him.”

Raven nods, sitting down near Octavia. 

“It’s good you’re able to recognize what set you off at least.”

She half-heartedly agrees.

“Anything I can do to make you feel better”

She thinks for a long moment.

“I wanna go outside.”

“O, it’s 40 degrees. You’d freeze.”

“I just… I haven’t been outside at all in so long.” The desperation in her voice sends Raven to find Abby.

“Octavia wants to go outside.”

“Raven, she’s still very fragile.”

“She hasn’t seen the light of day in over 4 years. Just 5 minutes. Please.”

Abby sighs. “Under a few conditions. Anya’s going out with you.”

“Sure.”

“And we’ll need to bundle her up. She has no body fat to keep her warm.”

“Of course.”

“And she can’t be outside longer than 10 minutes.”

“Fair enough.”

“Alright. I’ll send Anya your way.”

“Thank you, Abby.”

_________________________________________________________________________

A half hour later they have Octavia in a wheelchair bundled in Raven’s beanie and gloves, Anya’s jacket, and 2 blankets. Anya wheels her to the elevator, and Octavia is exhilarated. She’s getting outside. When they finally get out to the courtyard outside the hospital, Octavia actually smiles. She stares at the cloudy sky and the trees, taking gulps of the fresh air.

“How’s it feel?” Anya asks.

“Good.”

She watches birds and squirrels foraging for spilled food left by benches. She hasn’t seen animals in such a long time, that she’s fascinated watching them. Her stomach muscles tire out after a while and she ends up rather hunched in the wheelchair, head resting awkwardly on the back.

“O, you’re looking tired. You ready to go back inside?”

Octavia mournfully nods.

“We’ll get Abby to let you come out again soon,” Anya says.

“I came out years ago,” she says with a wry smirk. Raven and Anya chuckle.

When they get back to the room, Bellamy says that Lincoln had texted him to apologize.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t his fault.”

Bellamy nods. “Do you want to try to see him again?”

“Yeah.”

__________________________________________________________________________

That night, Octavia has a night terror. Raven wakes up to her screams and blindly reaches for the lights until she can find them. Octavia is covering her head with her left arm and her torso with her right. She’s crying and screaming, eyes shut.

“Octavia, O, it’s Raven. You’re okay.”

Octavia continues to scream. 

The night nurse runs in a few moments later.

“O, you’re alright. Wake up, you’re okay.”

“What happened?” The nurse checks her monitors.

“I don’t know, she just started screaming. It’s a nightmare or something.”

They both attempt to wake Octavia up. The second Raven touches her, she tries to hurl herself off the bed. Luckily, the guard rails are up, and the nurse is standing on that side of the bed to push her back on. Octavia stops screaming and shakes violently, hyperventilating.

“Baby, it’s okay.”

She appears to be awake, but there’s no recognition in her eyes, only panic.

Raven sits with her, wishing she could hold her, but knowing that would only make things worse.

“Octavia, you’re not there. We’re in the hospital. I’m here with you, and so is your nurse. You’re safe.”

Eventually, her hyperventilation breaks for a sob.

“Come back to me, O, you’re not there.”

There’s another sob and Octavia glances up at Raven with heartbroken eyes.

“Hey. You’re okay.”

She seems somewhat comforted by Raven’s presence. Eventually, they coax her to swallow a valium and a sleeping pill. Raven is thankful that for once she isn’t given IV anxiety meds. They have to start weaning her off needing IV meds if there’s ever a hope for her to be at home. Half an hour later, she’s starting to get sleepy. She still shies away from Raven’s touch, but looks to her for comfort as she dozes off.

  
  


The next morning, Raven wakes up as a nurse checks Octavia’s vitals at 5am. O doesn’t actually stir till around 8. At that point, she lets out a little moan and Raven looks over at her. Octavia moans again.

“Hey hon, you’re alright.”

She opens her eyes and gags.

Raven grabs a vomit bag from the table and holds it near her face. Octavia heaves for a little while, but it fizzles out fairly quickly.

They’re silent for a few minutes as Octavia waits for the room to stop spinning.

“Need anything?”

“Ugh… I don’t think so.”

“Do you remember what happened last night?”

Octavia wracks her brain.

“Not really.”

“You had a nightmare or something. It was pretty bad...”

Octavia looks up at Raven, waiting for her to finish.

“We got you to swallow some valium and a sleeping pill.”

“That’s why I threw up. Fucking valium.”

“Yeah.”

  
  
  


Dr. Warren comes in a few minutes later.

“Hey Octavia. Heard you had a rough day yesterday. And night.”

“Apparently.”

“When the nurses filled me in I let Niylah know what happened. She’s going to try to stop by today.”

“Kay.”

“As much as I know it was a difficult night, I actually would view this as a positive step in your recovery.”

“Why?”

Raven scowls at Dr. Warren.  _ She  _ didn’t wake up at 3am to try to console Octavia.

“It means that instead of being suppressed, your emotions are being felt. Your nervous system is recognizing that you’re in a safe environment for you to express yourself, even if it’s involuntary at first. While it can be painful and overwhelming, this is one step closer to being able to acknowledge and feel those emotions without letting them overwhelm you.” 

“Hmm,” Octavia says. She seems about as impressed as Raven with the idea she should be  _ grateful  _ for feelings of terror.

  
  
  


Later that morning, Octavia has occupational therapy. The OT is having her try to brush her own hair, but it’s not going well. Her ability to reach up is still somewhat limited and her hair is ridiculously long. Octavia growls, throwing the hairbrush down on the bed.

“I can tell you’re frustrated, Octavia.”

She sighs.

“Want to talk about it?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“The task?”

“No, my hair.”

“It is pretty long. I think a lot of people might have trouble taking care of it.”

“Does a haircut fall in the category of OT?”

“I think it definitely could. We actually have a hair dresser who comes to work with our cancer patients. I could see if I could get her to come up here too.”

Octavia nods adamantly.

“She comes on tuesdays. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

___________________________________________________________________________

They try again with Lincoln that afternoon.

“Hi.” She says when he walks in. She had still flinched when he had knocked on the door.

“Hey. I’m so sorry I scared you.”

“It’s alright.”

“How are you?”

She shrugs.

“Right, that’s a stupid question. Sorry. Are you getting bored here?”

She shakes her head. “I’m exhausted. It’s been a lot of work.”

“I would imagine.”

“How are you?”

“I’m okay. Better now that you’re safe.”

“Did Bell tell you… what happened?”

“A little. I… saw some on the news too.”

“I’m on the news?”

“Yeah. You, the other two, that scumbag.”

She nervously plays with a few strands of her long hair with her newly free left hand.

Bellamy steers the conversation a different direction because he can see Octavia’s anxiety rising. 

“O, you have PT in a few minutes.”

“Do you want me to head out?” Lincoln asks.

“Stay… Just don’t judge.”

“Never. What are you working on?”

“Strengthening my core mostly. And mobility and strength for my left arm.”

“She did really well with her exercises yesterday. Once you can weight-bear again, you’ll be walking in no time.”

“You’re not walking?”

She shakes her head, feeling embarrassed.

“It’s alright. You’ll get there.”

The physical therapist and her assistant come in and work with Octavia. They have her doing gentle stretching and strengthening exercises with her left arm.

Raven comes back from her walk and hugs Lincoln.

“Hey, good to see you. How’s our girl?”

“Tired.” O interjects.

“She’s doing very well,” the PT says.

Octavia points at the woman, breathing heavily after an exercise. “She overworks me.”

Raven looks amused and sits down on the window bench. They all watch and encourage Octavia while the physical therapist has her do little circles with her arm. Octavia glances over at Raven, Bellamy, and Lincoln, all watching her with rapt attention.

“Get a life,” she says with a smirk.

  
  
  
  


“It’s going to be time for dinner soon,” Lincoln says, after PT is over. “I was thinking about grabbing some Chinese food. I don’t know what your diet is looking like these days, O.”

“Chinese,” Octavia says reverently.

They’re all in favor of Octavia eating anything she wants; she desperately needs to gain weight, so they order everything the girl is remotely interested in. Anya comes by to check in before her shift is over, and Octavia gets an idea.

“Stay for Chinese.” She blurts out.

“Oh I couldn’t.”

“Why?” Raven asks. “You got plans?”

“Well, no.”

“Then stay. We’ve got plenty. We know you’ve been working overtime for Octavia and we really appreciate it. Please stay.”

Anya sighs. “Okay. Thank you.”

An orderly stops by with a glass of milk, saying the nutritionist wants to focus on Octavia’s calcium intake because of her brittle bones.

Octavia only ends up eating a small portion after the big glass of milk, but things feel almost normal with them eating out of shared take-out containers and watching The Office. It’s the second day that Octavia can actually feed herself with her newly free left arm, though the process is slow and shaky. She’s excited to have less dependence on her girlfriend and brother. 

Halfway through the second episode of The Office, Octavia makes a noise low in her throat, covers her mouth, and then projectile vomits absolutely everywhere.

“Woah, hey,” Anya says, standing up and helping to support Octavia to sit up as she continues to throw up.

“Should I go get someone?” Raven asks.

“I can take care of this.”

“You’re off duty. You shouldn’t have to.”

“It’s okay.” Anya gently lays Octavia back, giving her a sip of water. The patient is exhausted and teary.

“Hon, what do you need?” Anya asks.

“A shower.”

“We can sponge you off and get you a fresh gown.”

“No, a real one.”

“Sweetheart, there’s no way.” Raven says, and Octavia breaks down into semi-hysterical crying.

“Oh god.” She says, reaching for her, but Octavia pulls away.

“Raven, I’ve got this. Why don’t you two go take a walk?”

Lincoln nods and leads Raven out of the room as Octavia continues to wail. They walk through the hospital, down the stairs, past the coffee shop, and outside into the cool night air. Raven runs a hand through her hair.

“Does she always get that upset?”

“Sometimes. Her psychiatrist said it’s a good thing. I wanted to punch her.”

“I would too.”

“But she’s making progress too. When she first got here she’d barely talk.”

“If there’s anything I can do, let me know, okay?”

“Of course. You should come back and visit. I think O really enjoyed seeing you.”

“It was good to see her. I’ll plan to come back and visit soon.”

  
  
  
  


When Raven gets back to the room, the smell of vomit is gone. Octavia has a wet head, a clean gown and sheets, and is asleep.

“Wow. Did you sedate her,” She whispers to Anya. 

“No. She was exhausted. I couldn’t even get her to stay awake for me to dry her hair. You know, I was thinking about how she’s been throwing up. It seems like she usually has some amount of dairy with her meals. Has the nutritionist looked into whether she’s lactose intolerant?”

“No. Do you think she might be?”

Anya nods. “It’s at least worth checking out.”

“Thanks. We’ll do that. And thanks for cleaning her up and helping her calm down. You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

Raven nods.

“Hopefully you guys have a restful night. See you Monday.”

“See you Monday.”


	8. Chapter 8

The next day, they heavily sedate Octavia for her gynecology appointment. They bring her down to the clinic and Raven stays connected to Octavia the whole time, whispering soothing words.

They had asked O to sign a document allowing the procedure to be performed on her if she had to be unconscious. It looks like that might be necessary. When the doctor comes near her, she hides her face in the pillow.

“Sweetheart, do you need more sedatives?”

She doesn’t answer right away, but eventually lifts her head.

“No.”

“Okay.” Dr. Foster says gently. “I’m going to do a pelvic exam and pap smear. Do you want me to talk you through it?”

Octavia shakes her head. “Just do it.”

When the doctor starts the exam, Octavia squeezes Raven’s hand as tight as she can. Raven rubs her hand, but suddenly Octavia is gone. She starts screaming, kicks Dr. Foster, and almost scoots off the bed before Raven catches her and pushes her back on. Octavia fights against her, weak arms and legs flailing, voice breaking with every scream.

“It’s okay, honey,” Raven says, trying to avoid being hit and calm Octavia down simultaneously. Dr Foster pushes the call button and a doctor and nurse come in after a minute. Abby and Anya are both gone for the weekend.

“It’s okay, O. You’re safe. I’m here.” Raven says as they pin Octavia down. The doctor injects something into Octavia’s IV line, and the patient fights for a few more moments before relaxing and beginning to close her eyes.

“It’ll be several hours before she wakes up,” the doctor says.

Raven nods. “I’m going to take a walk,” she says, voice straining against the urge to cry.

She’s become familiar with all the walking routes in and around the hospital. This particular day, she decides to just go around the ward. She stops when she hears someone calling

“Zoe, come back!”

A tiny, bony girl shuffles past her, the back of her hospital gown waving open to reveal a bruised and scarred back. She almost makes it around a corner when a nurse stops her.

“No!” Don’t make me go back. Don’t make me go back!” The girl crumples to the floor, and the nurse kneels beside her.

“You’re safe, Zoe. Emmerson is in jail, and he can’t hurt you anymore.”

Raven realizes this is another one of his victims. She watches as the nurse tries to calm the girl down, but realizes she shouldn’t intrude and decides to walk away.

  
  


Raven gets back to the room and Octavia’s wrists are in tight velcro cuffs that hold them down by her sides. Her ankles are in similar contraptions. Raven stalks out to the nurse’s station, shaking with fury.

“Why the hell is Octavia restrained?”

“You’re going to have to talk with the doctor.”

“Where is he?”

“With a patient.”

Raven waits by the nurse’s station for 20 minutes before Dr. Jaha finally emerges from another room.

“Why the fuck did you put Octavia in restraints?”

“She kicked a doctor and had to be held down and sedated. We need to be safe in order to treat her.”

“She just came from over 4 years of being restrained in a bed, tortured, and raped. She was scared because she was getting a pelvic exam and having flashback to a psychopath hurting her. Take her out of those things. Now.”

  
  


The doctor eventually agrees to take off the restraints. Luckily, it’s before Octavia wakes up. Raven has to leave for a counseling appointment before she comes around. When she finally does start stirring, Bellamy is there. She jerks when she first sees him, and it takes her a few moments to slow her quick breathing.

“Hey O.”

“Hi.”

“Do you remember what happened?” 

She shakes her head. 

“They loaded you up on Valium so I’m not surprised.”

“How come?”

“Dr. Foster was going to do an exam.”

“Oh yeah. Did she do the exam? I signed something saying she could…”

“Sorry, I don’t know.”

She sighs.

“Do you have PT today?”

“Don’t know.”

“Wanna watch something?”

“No.” She stares out the window at the gray sky. He can tell she’s feeling dark.

“Are you okay?”

She shakes her head.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I wanna see them.”

“See who?”

“The other two girls.”

“I don’t know if that’s a great idea.”

She glares at him. “It’s my choice.”

He sighs. “Do you want me to see if I can track them down?”

She nods. “Where’s Raven?”

“She’s at an appointment. She’ll be back before too long.”

Octavia nods.

“I guess I’ll go see if I can find them. If you’re okay being alone.”

“Yep.”

“Alright. Be back soon.”

__________________________________________________________________________

Raven sits in the waiting room for several minutes, nervously bouncing her non-braced leg until someone calls her name. The last appointment had been an intake, but now she would be seen by her actual counselor. The woman has long wavy hair, several piercings, and a long flowy peasant dress. She doesn’t look like what Raven would think of as a shrink, and it immediately puts her at ease.

“I’m Luna.”

“Raven.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

She brings her back to her office, which is painted a light blue and has seashells and an honest-to-god hammock as well as some more normal, but still beachy, chairs. 

“I like your office,” Raven says bemusedly.

“Thank you. I grew up on Cozumel, so I wanted this place to feel like home.”

“It’s nice.”

“So Raven, why don’t you tell me a little bit about why you’re here?”

“Well, my girlfriend, Octavia, came back a couple of weeks ago. She… she was kidnapped and held captive for four years. You’ve probably seen it on the news.”

Luna nods.

“I thought she was dead.”

“That must have been a big shock.”

“It was. I’m so happy she’s back. But… she’s not… herself. I mean she is, but she’s also someone new. She’s had all of these horrifying experiences and I only know a tiny piece of it. I’m trying so hard to be there for her, trying to make sure everyone is treating her right and trying to make the environment as peaceful as possible so she at least has a shot at healing.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”

“It sounds like all of your efforts right now are going into caring for her.”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s caring for you?”

Raven is surprised to find tears in her eyes. 

“I don’t know.”

They talk more about Octavia, about Raven’s job, about what life has looked like the past two weeks. The hour flies by, and even though none of her problems are solved by the end of one session, Raven knows she should continue working with Luna. 

___________________________________________________________________________

Nylah comes to see Octavia while Bellamy is out. It’s her first counseling session without Raven there, but she feels okay about it.

“Hello, Octavia.”

She nods in acknowledgment.

“How are you?”

She gives her a look.

“You’re right, that’s maybe not the most helpful question.”

She nods.

“I heard you had to be sedated. Tell me about that.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Okay. Well, what  _ do _ you know?”

“Dr. Foster was here.”

“Do you think it has to do with her?”

“No.”

“More with the idea of someone touching you?”

“Yeah.” She winces.

“Do you want to talk about that?”

“Not really.”

“Okay.”

They sit in silence for a while.

“Bell and Raven don’t treat me like an adult.”

Niylah looks up, surprised that Octavia said something unprompted. “Tell me more about that.”

“They… they act like I’m a child. They think they know what’s best. It’s my life.”

“You’re right, it is.”

“I know I’m really fucked up. But I need to be in control of my own life.”

“Have you told them that?”

She shakes her head. “Not directly.”

“Something to think about. It seems like Raven and Bellamy would be open to anything that would help you. I think if you explained it like you just did to me, they would probably listen.”

Octavia nods.

____________________________________________________________________________

  
  


“O, I talked with the families of the other two girls, Zoe and Harper.” Bellamy says later that day.

“And?”

“Harper’s parents said she’s pretty fragile and they’re not sure how she’d do seeing you. Zoe’s family thought it would be a great idea.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, I think that’ll work.”

Bellamy gets a nursing assistant to help transfer Octavia into the wheelchair, and they go down the hallway and to a different floor. Apparently, Zoe is dealing with heart problems because she’s in the telemetry ward.

“O, just let me know if I can do anything or if it’s too much.”

She nods and Bellamy knocks on the door, then opens it and wheels Octavia in. 

Zoe is on the bed, swathed in blankets. She’s tiny and freckled, with a large number of wires coming out of her hospital gown to a boxy contraption around her neck. She has a feeding tube going in her nose and casts on her wrists and one leg. When she sees Octavia, she bursts into tears.

“Hey,” Octavia says softly.

“Hi,” Zoe says, sniffling. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I heard you screaming and I could tell something bad was happening.”

“Here?”

“No. In Emerson’s house. When you… When he... ”

Octavia notices a raw abrasion on Zoe’s one free ankle that looks even more violent than her own. She wonders if the girl had tried to get loose to help her.

“How are you?” Octavia voice strains.

The girl shrugs. “I don’t know. Sick of answering that question.”

Octavia nods. “Me too.”

“Thank you for getting help. You saved us.”

She nods.

“How old are you?”

“24. What about you?”

“15.”

Octavia’s heart aches. She’s fucked up enough at her age with all that had happened. She can’t imagine still being a kid and enduring it all. 

“When do you get out of here,” Zoe asks.

She shrugs. “No one has said. You?”

“Hopefully another week. I need to gain a little more weight.”

“Me too.”

“How long were you there?”

“Four years. You?”

“Wow. I was only there for ten months.”

“It’s not a contest. It was still bad even if you weren’t there as long.”

They sit for a moment in the overwhelming heaviness. Yes, they’ve survived. Yes, they’re safe now. But no, they’re not unscathed. Neither will ever be the same.

“So your family’s here?”

She nods. “My brother and my girlfriend.”

“My mom is here. I said I didn’t want her in here when you were here. It’s been really hard for her.”  
Zoe is suddenly in tears again. She reaches out and Octavia grabs her hand. They don’t say anything else. There’s nothing that can be said that will erase what Emerson did to them. But there’s something comforting about the two of them knowing that together. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice I've updated the rating to M, for safety's sake.
> 
> Trigger warning in this chapter for discussion of rape, suicidal ideation and self harm.

Raven comes back that night to Octavia sleeping soundly.

“She looks worn out.” she says, handing Bellamy a cup of tea.

“She is. She visited with Zoe Monroe.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d it go?”

“Good. I think it was good for both of them.”

“I wish I had been here.”

“You can’t always be here, Rae.”

“I know, but that was a big visit.”

He nods.

  
  


Dr. Foster comes in the next morning when Octavia is awake. The girl pales the moment she sees her.

“I’m not here to do an exam.” 

“Then why?”

“Well, you remember you gave permission for me to do an exam while you were sedated if necessary?”

She nods.

“I did, and I’d like to go over what I found.”

“Oh.”

“Your pap smear came back clear. I did notice some scar tissue around your cervix, possibly from your pregnancy or it could be from sexual assault.”

She stiffens.  
“Once you gain some weight, if your period doesn’t come back, or if you have other issues, we can discuss further treatment.”

Octavia nods, looking uncomfortable. The doctor wishes her a smooth healing process and leaves. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Anya comes back the next day after having been off and Octavia is relieved. The nurse makes her feel at ease.

“Hey Octavia. How have you been,” she asks as she takes O’s blood pressure.

She shrugs.

“I saw Dr Foster. Tried to do a pap smear and pelvic exam again.”

“How was that?”

“I freaked out.”

Anya nods. “I probably would too in your position.”

“It’s humiliating.”

“I get what you’re saying, but I hope you know no one is judging you.”

Octavia nods, grimacing.

“I saw Zoe Monroe too.”

“How was that? You guys had never met before, had you?”

“Nope. It was good. You’ve seen her?”

“Yeah, she was on this floor for a bit before they moved her to telemetry.”

“She’s so young.”

“She is.”

Octavia is silent after that, and Anya is pretty sure she’s done talking about it.

“How’s your stomach?”

“Bad.”

“I’ll see if I can get your nutritionist in here today or tomorrow.”

She nods. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Need anything else?”

She sighs. “A shower.”

“A little longer and you can get a real one. In the meantime, I’ll grab stuff for a sponge bath and hair wash, okay?”

She nods. “Thanks.”

___________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________

Lexa comes back the following day. Raven is there but tries not to talk unless she needs to.

“Hi Octavia, how are you?”

She shrugs.

“Are you up to talking about the trial?”

She nods.

“O, do you want me here,” Raven asks. Octavia nods in response while Lexa sits down in Bellamy's usual chair across from the bed, pulling out a laptop. 

“Emerson is being charged with possession of child pornography, 3 counts of kidnapping, including that of a minor, 1 count of rape, and 2 of rape of a minor. I would like to start talking about additional charges. We can charge him for each time he raped you, beat you, etcetera. I also brought pictures of the house that we may or may not get to today. I thought we could verify where you were held and where things occurred the day of your escape.”

“O-okay.” Octavia is pale but she puts on a brave face. 

“Let me know at any time if you need a break.”

She nods. 

They talk about how often Emerson raped her. How basically the only days he didn’t were when he was sick or when she had her miscarriage and lost a ton of blood.

“Do you know how the miscarriage happened?”

“He beat me and I started bleeding.”

“We can charge him for aggravated murder for that.”

“Oh,” she says, a bit surprised.

They talk about if it was once a day, more than once. It was often more than once. Octavia tells Lexa that Emerson told her he had a sex addiction and she and the other girls were his solution. There’s no emotion in her voice when she says it and Raven wonders what she’s thinking.

Lexa scribbles on a legal pad and makes a few calculations.

“And you were abducted on August 21st, 2015, making it 4 years and 47 days till you escaped. That would mean you were there for 1,507 days. So… we could be looking at charging him for around... 2000 counts of rape.”

Octavia turns ashen and covers her face with her hands.

Raven has been quiet, but feels nauseated at how much trauma her girlfriend has been through. She shoves her feelings aside to make sure her girlfriend is okay.

“O… Do you want a break?”

“Mhm,” Octavia murmurs, voice cracking.

“Alright, I’ll go grab myself a coffee,” Lexa says. “I’ll come back in say, 20 minutes and see where we’re at. You’re doing so well, Octavia. Thank you for your help.” She gets up and leaves and Raven watches Octavia to see what she should do. The girl stays hunched over herself, looking into her lap.

“O, how can I help you, baby?”

Octavia shutters and curls in on herself, grimacing.

“Do you need help or just some time?”

“I don’t KNOW!”

“Okay,” Raven says gently.

They’re silent for a long time. Octavia looks like she’s crawling out of her skin the way she shutters and writhes every few moments. Raven notices with concern that she’s digging her nails into her skin, leaving claw marks on her neck.

“O, you’re hurting yourself. Do you need something for your anxiety?”

She flexes her hands, then hits her head with her palms a few times.

“ _Hey_ ,” Raven says. 

“I’m disgusting,” Octavia says, words almost strangled to silence through her tense throat.

“No, you’re not.”

“Two fucking _thousand_ times, Raven.”

“That makes him disgusting, not you.”

“I need to get out of here.”

“You wanna go outside?”

Octavia nods pleadingly, fingernails digging into her upper arm this time, leaving red marks behind.

“I’ll see if I can get Anya to take you.”

“Okay.” 

Raven presses the button and waits for Anya to come, noticing how small Octavia looks in the hospital bed.

Anya comes in and immediately realizes that Octavia is off. She complies with bundling Octavia up to go outside right away after she sees the marks Octavia left behind on her own neck and arms. The beginning of November has meant 30 degree highs for the days, so they make sure Octavia is well-covered before bringing her out. 

There are snowflakes falling and everything is still and quiet. Octavia breathes deeply, shutting her eyes. After a few minutes, Raven starts to say something, when Octavia interrupts her.

“Shhh.”

“Octavia Blake, did you just shush me,” Raven asks with mock indignance.

“I need this.”

Raven is about to retort when she catches herself. “Okay.”

They stay out there for 20 minutes, quiet and contemplative. Octavia starts to shiver and Anya finally breaks the silence.

“O, you look cold. We need to bring you inside.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She bursts into tears.

“I’m sorry, Octavia.” Anya starts wheeling her back inside, and Octavia grows more agitated as they go through the doors into the lobby. 

“I need to have control over _something,_ ” she sobs. Raven looks like she’s about to start crying as well.

“Octavia, it’s okay,” Anya says, squatting down so she can be at eye-level with her. “You’re not there, okay? You’re safe. You’ve got your girlfriend. Your brother is coming to visit tonight. You can’t stay outside, but we can go anywhere in this hospital. We don’t have to go back to your room right now if you don’t want to.”

“N-no.”

“No, you don’t want to go back to your room?”

She shakes her head vigorously. 

“Okay.”

“I just need some peace. It’s so bright and busy in here,” she says, furiously wiping away her tears. She’s raking her nails down her shoulder without thinking about it.

“Okay. I think I know a place.”

Anya wheels her down several hallways, goes up two floors, then goes down a few more hallways. Finally, they get to a quiet, empty waiting room with large windows to the outside. Octavia is squinting, and Anya instinctively turns off the fluorescent lights.

“How’s that?”

The girl nods, still sniffling.

They sit there until Octavia is overdue for meds and visits with her nutritionist and therapist.

“Hon, we’ve gotta go back now. But we can come back here soon.”

Octavia sets her jaw and nods. On the way back, Raven mouths a “thank you” to Anya.

__________________________________________________________________________

The meeting with the nutritionist goes well, and she agrees to take Octavia off of dairy to see if that helps with her stomach problems. Then, it’s time for her to see Niylah again. She asks Raven to leave for the appointment.

“How are you today, Octavia?”

She shrugs.

“What would you like to talk about today?”

“I feel… out of control.”

“Over what?”

“My mind. Body. Emotions. What happened to me.”

“Are we ever in control?”

She shrugs again. “It feels terrifying. Like I’d rather do anything to feel in control than feel out of it.”

Niylah nods. “What bad thing will happen if you’re out of control?”

“The emotions will get to be too much.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll go crazy. Or try to kill myself.” She doesn't mention her biggest fear; doesn't want to speak it into reality.

“Do you think about harming yourself often?”

“No. Not now that I’m here.”

Niylah waits, sensing that there’s more.

“When I was in Emerson’s house, after I first tried to escape, I thought about it all the time. He had broken my knees. I couldn’t walk at all and he had to carry me to the bathroom. I thought I was going to live the rest of my days in his house and die without being found. I thought it’d be better to just get it over with. I’d purposely try to make him mad at me, hoping he’d beat me too hard and I’d get too bad a head injury or bleed out internally, or get an infection. I’d try to get him to choke me like he did sometimes and hope that he’d hold on a little too long. It was like a game.”

“That sounds very hopeless.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you feel hopeless now?”

“No. I just feel… broken.”

Niylah nods. 

“What makes you broken?”

“Everything that was done to me. I’m a shell of who I used to be. I used to be so confident and tough.”

“I think many people would consider you tough for surviving all that you did.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I was trying to get him to kill me and he wouldn’t. It wasn’t like I was brave or strong.”

“Octavia, we haven’t talked about the day you called 911. But from the police report and what the ICU doctor gathered, you fought till you had nothing left to get out of there and save Harper and Zoe. That is toughness. That’s a will to survive.”

Octavia doesn’t say anything.

“I do have to ask since we’ve been discussing this, do you have any plans to harm yourself?”

“No. I just need some time. And some control over _something_.”

“I do have some ideas in that department. There’s a skill that comes from dialectical behavioral therapy called ‘Alternative Rebellion.’ The gist of it is, you pick something to change or control that won’t harm you or anyone else, but that might be out of the social norm. It could be what you wear, how you do your hair or makeup. I have a whole list I’ll give you. Try and find something on that list, or something you can think of outside the list that you can change to help you feel in control.”

Octavia nods. 

Niylah prints out the list and comes back to deliver it to Octavia, then says goodbye. Fifteen minutes later, Raven comes back in.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“How was counseling?”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep okay tonight?”

She shakes her head.

“I need a sleeping pill.”

“Let’s ask for it now, so you can take it before it gets too late.”

“Okay.”

“But I was thinking before that, maybe you’d like to watch a movie and have some popcorn?”

Octavia brightens slightly.

“That sounds nice. But I get to pick the movie.”

Raven smiles. 

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of my descriptions may seem extreme, but when you actually listen to accounts from people like the victims of Ariel Castro, it's not so outlandish. There are some really, really awful people in the world. Fortunately, there are a lot of good ones too.
> 
> Octavia didn't mention her biggest fear about her emotions getting to be too much. What do you think it is?


	10. Chapter 10

Tuesday comes, and Octavia’s occupational therapist is true to her word and sends a hairdresser up to see her. 

“So Octavia, how are you thinking about getting your hair cut? Just a trim, or something more drastic?”

“Um, I think I want to do something drastic.”

Meanwhile, Raven is at another appointment with Luna.

“How are you today, Raven?”

“Um, okay.”

“How has this week been?”

“Octavia met with the DA yesterday.”

“Okay.”

“They started talking numbers, breaking down what happened to Octavia how many times.”

“Mhmm.”

“They’re charging Emerson for 2000 counts of rape. And that’s just for Octavia.”

“Wow.”

“I just… I know that Octavia doesn’t need my pity. It’s unproductive and won’t help her heal. But how does someone live through that and go on and have a normal life? You know, she was pregnant, and she miscarried because Emerson was beating her?”

“How does all this make you feel?”

“Angry and helpless. I feel like maybe if I had just passed out more flyers or posted more signs, maybe she would have been found sooner. Maybe she wouldn’t have had to go through so much.”

“From what I understand, no one besides Emerson knew she was there. It seems unlikely that more flyers would have helped.”

She sighs. “I know.”

“Sometimes we put blame on ourselves to try to feel some control over a situation in which we had no control.”

She laughs mirthlessly. “Octavia’s been wanting control too.”

Luna nods. “That makes sense.”

“I just don’t know what to  _ do. _ I want to help her more. I’m going to have to go back to work soon, and it kills me that I won’t be here for her.”

“Raven, have you heard the oxygen mask analogy?”

“You mean, put on your own oxygen mask before putting on anyone else’s?”

“You’ve got it.”

“But  _ someone’s  _ got to be there for her.”   
“And it doesn’t always have to be you. When was the last time you went home?”

“Um… Like a week and a half ago.”

“How can you help Octavia or take care of her if you can’t take care of yourself? Her healing is not going to necessarily be linear. It’s going to take a long time. I don’t want you to burn out before you get to see her start to heal. And if you aren’t taking time for yourself, how can you not burn out?”

Raven sighs. “I know you’re right… I just…” She trails off.

“Burning yourself out is another form of trying to take control. I realize that feeling like you have control over something can be addicting. But it ends up leaving you anxious and miserable because you will continue to be reminded that we aren’t really in control over our circumstances.”

“What am I supposed to do instead?”

“Your way of controlling something could instead be consciously choosing to care for yourself in small ways. Go home and sleep in your own bed for a night while Bellamy stays here with Octavia. Or go do something you enjoy. You’re in this for the long haul. That means you need to choose now to start caring for yourself, or you  _ will  _ burn out.”

Raven nods.

They talk for another half hour, and then Raven goes back up to see Octavia. When she enters the room, she finds Octavia with her hair in a pixie cut. She does a double take.

“That bad?”

“What? No, honey it looks great! I’m just surprised.”

“I was sick of it, and I might even be able to take care of it now. Plus, it was pretty dead from the lack of nutrition.”

Raven nods. “You look like a badass.”

Octavia smiles. 

  
  


Abby Griffin comes in two days later and announces that they’re going to put together a checklist for Octavia to go home. It includes seeing a cardiologist, as she’s been having unexplained episodes of tachycardia (fast heart rate), a stable or rising weight for 3 days, a check off from her psychiatrist, and at least semi-normal bloodwork.

  
  
  


Octavia takes a long nap that afternoon, and when she wakes up, she’s alone. Raven must have gone for a walk or to get coffee. At first it’s normal; sort of pleasant, even. But the longer she sits there, the more her anxiety ramps up. She should be fine; wants to be fine. But she isn’t fine. For some reason, all Octavia can think about is waking up alone day after day for over 4 years in Emerson’s house, waiting to see what kind of torture he would inflict on her. Before she even notices it’s happening, she slips into a panic attack.

It takes 15 minutes for Anya to come in to see Octavia sobbing hysterically.

“Oh hey. It’s Anya. What’s going on?”

Octavia’s too incoherent to respond. She won’t even look at Anya.

“Octavia, if you can’t calm down, I need to give you some valium. Can you try to talk to me? Tell me what’s wrong?” Anya waits several long moments to give Octavia a chance but the girl just sits there, crying and shaking.

“Alright. Okay.” Anya gets some Valium and sticks it in the patient’s line. Octavia still sobs for several minutes, and the nurse waits with her, trying to soothe her without scaring her until she’s finally asleep.

Raven walks in just as Anya is getting ready to leave. She sees Octavia’s tear tracks and red nose as well as the used syringe Anya is capping.

“What’s going on?”

“She had a panic attack.”

“How bad?”

“I came in here and she was crying and hyperventilating. Couldn’t talk at all.”

“Shit. You had to drug her again?”

“Yeah. She was really out of it.”

Raven sighs and lets the nurse leave.

A few hours later, Octavia starts to breach consciousness. Raven gets a vomit bag ready just in case, and as soon as Octavia is fully awake, she uses it.

“Hey.” Raven says.

“Ugh.”

“Not feeling good?”

“Uh uh.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Water.”

She nods and pours her a cup of water.

“Don’t remember going to sleep…”

“Valium.”

She furrows her brow and nods.

“Do you remember it at all?”

“I had a panic attack, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Do you know what caused it?”

She shrugs.

“Do you think it was being alone?”

“I don’t know. I woke up and I was okay at first. It was just… I started feeling like I was in Emmerson’s house. Like, I knew I wasn’t there, but something felt the same. I don’t know why.”

“I’m sorry, hon. That sounds awful.” She takes Octavia’s hand gently. “What could we do in the future to help you?”

She looks like she wants to say something, but shrugs.

“What?”

“I-- I don’t know.”

“It looked like you did know.”

“Um… Honestly, being alone for a long time is super triggering.”

“Yeah?”

She nods. “Sorry. It’s so dumb. I know you can’t be here all the time. I wish I could just calm down.”

“This isn’t your fault. You haven’t done anything to make this happen.”

“I know. I just hate being so much to deal with.”

“You’re worth it. Do you know that?”

Octavia looks down.

“ _ Hey,  _ do you know you’re worth it?” Raven looks her in the eyes till she finally looks up.

“I… I don’t know if I do. I don’t even understand why you’re here. I--I’m not the same person I was four years ago. I can’t walk or button a shirt or sit alone for 15 minutes without having a panic attack. I’m more of a burden than a person. My personality is gone. If you think we’re ever going to have a normal physical relationship again, you’re kidding yourself--”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It  _ does  _ matter. Being with you used to be so good. Now I can’t even look at myself naked without wanting to vomit. I can’t imagine someone touching me without a million violent memories making my body react before I can even think. You want kids. I can’t even take care of myself, much less a child. And my body’s probably too fucked up to carry a baby now, anyway. I don’t understand what’s left of me that you could possibly want.”

“Honey, it’s you. It’s  _ you _ that I want. Not sex with you. Not kids with you. Just  _ you. _ And some asshole putting you through hell didn’t erase the person that you are. It made things hard. But even if you stay exactly as you are today for the rest of your life, you’re who I want. You’re who I choose. Not kids or a ‘typical’ physical relationship. You.”

“It’s not fair to you,” She says, voice breaking with tears. 

“Octavia, when you were gone, it was like part of myself was missing. Even after over 4 years, I couldn’t let you go. People told me to move on, but I couldn’t.”

“But  _ why?” _

“Because I love you.”

“Oh.” Octavia wipes tears off her cheeks.

Raven holds out her arms. “Can I hug you?”

Octavia nods and leans into the hug. Raven wraps her arms around her and kisses her cheek. After a few moments, she lets her go and Octavia scoots over and pats the bed so Raven will sit beside her. They’re quiet for a long time.

“I--I love you too. I just don’t know how this is going to work,” Octavia says.

“I don’t either. But that’s okay. We’ll figure it out. I just want you to know that I’m going to stay here. You don’t have to worry about me leaving.”

Octavia nods and they’re quiet again for a while.

“What do you want to do tonight?”

“I wanna see Zoe again.”

“Sure. I can text her mom. Bellamy gave me the number.”

Zoe’s mom texts back a few minutes later saying that Zoe is awake and wants to see Octavia too. Raven gets Anya to help her get O into a wheelchair. She wheels her to the elevator and up to the telemetry floor. Zoe tells them to come in when Raven knocks. 

“Hey Zoe,” Octavia says. 

“Hey.” She still has the feeding tube in her nose but has a little more color in her cheeks than the last time.

“This is Raven, my girlfriend.”

“Hi,” Zoe says shyly.

“Hi. O, do you want me to give you two some time?”

She nods and Raven leaves.

“I like your hair.”

“Thanks.”

“How are you?”

“Okay,” Octavia says. “I’ve been kind of overwhelmed lately.”

“You’re not the only one. Harper’s parents said she got moved to the psych ward after attacking a nurse who was trying to help her.”

“Yikes.”

“She’s been struggling a lot since she’s been here.”

“Have you seen her?”

“No. My mom has been talking to hers.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“No. But I saw her once.”

“At Emerson’s?”

She nods. “He left me handcuffed to the towel bar in the bathroom while he went to get her. She was pregnant and I think she was having the baby. He carried her into the bathroom and put her in the tub, then took me out.”

Octavia swallows thickly. 

“Were you ever pregnant?”

“Yeah. Once. You?”

Monroe shakes her head. 

“I don’t know why, but I never was.”

Octavia nods, relieved that the girl hadn’t had to go through that.

“Did you have yours?”

“I miscarried.” She rubs her face, feeling anxious. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. Do you… feel like you’ll ever be normal again?”

Zoe ponders this. “I don’t know. I feel really thankful to be alive and out of that situation. I guess things will get more normal as time goes on.”

“Yeah, I guess they will.”

“Um, I know Harper’s family has said she doesn’t want visitors, but I was wondering if you wanted to sign a card with me.”

“That’s a great idea, Zoe, I’d love to.”

“Great. I’ll try and bring it over once I get it. What’s your room number?”

“580.”

“Okay.”

“Are you leaving the hospital soon?”

Yeah. I just need to gain a few more pounds,” Zoe says, smoothing over the tape holding her nasal feeding tube to her face.

“Does the tube hurt?”

“No, not a lot. Sometimes in the evenings my throat will get sore. It’s weird to be trying to gain weight.”

“Yeah, I feel the same way. It’s been really hard to eat enough.”

“I’m glad I can talk to you, Octavia.”

“I am too.” 

  
  
  


That night, Octavia has a nightmare. She wakes up screaming and then her breaths start coming in gasps. Raven is beside her, trying to calm her.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“Can’t breathe.”.

“Alright, okay. Let’s count your breaths. Ready?” Raven counts with her up to eight, then back down to one, then up again. It’s a technique Niylah had taught them that seems to be somewhat effective when Octavia is in the midst of a panic attack. Octavia’s breaths slow a bit. Raven reaches to squeeze her arm and she recoils. 

“Please don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me.” Her voice breaks and her breath speeds up again. 

“Sorry. I won’t.”

Octavia rubs her face, trying to calm down.

“Love, do you want to talk about it?”

“I was--” She chokes like she might throw up.

“Shhh, it’s alright. It’s over.”

“It doesn’t feel over.”

Raven is silent for a minute, then says “I know.”

“He was… hurting me. And then I was pregnant again. In the dream.”

Raven swallows. “How far along were you?”

“In real life? I don’t know. It was really small.”

“You saw it?”

She nods. “I went into labor. I was bleeding. I thought I was gonna die. I delivered it, but it was so small I could hold it in one hand. It wasn’t breathing. After a long time, he came in and took it away.” 

“You must have been scared.”

She nods. “ But I was also relieved. I didn’t know what he would do with it or if he’d make me take care of it.”

“Did you have help? Was someone there with you?”

She shakes her head. 

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could have been there.”

She nods, and hears a sniffle. She looks up to see that Raven is crying. 

“I--I can’t comfort you.” Octavia murmurs.

“You don’t have to. I just want to grieve with you.”

“Oh.”

They sit there a long time, both calming down. Octavia finally gets ready to fall asleep again. She snakes her hand out from under her blankets and grabs Raven’s hand. Raven smiles and reclines the chair she’s in, shutting her eyes. 

“Rae?”

She opens her eyes again.

“I don’t think I said earlier; I’m glad you’re here.”

Raven kisses Octavia’s hand, then turns out the light. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Octavia’s biggest fear is being too much to deal with and having Raven and Bellamy abandon her. I think she’s starting to believe that might not happen.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this up. I’m an educator and am headed back to work so will be posting a little slower as the school year gets going.

  
  
  
  


“O, would it be okay if I stayed for your counseling appointment today?”

“I guess. Why?”

“I’m wondering if we could talk to Niylah about some of the panic attacks you’ve been having and what we should plan to do when we bring you home. I mean, we won’t have IV Valium to give you. “

Octavia nods. 

Niylah comes a half an hour later and after the initial niceties, Raven asks Niylah about what she had been wondering. 

“Well,” said Niylah, “Octavia, we’re building up your skills in therapy to tolerate distressing thoughts and hopefully reduce the amount of time end up nonverbal from your panic attacks. And I know you have an appointment with Dr Warren tomorrow in which hopefully she can adjust your medication to help. One thing you could consider as you get adjusted at home would be a service dog. You pretty clearly have symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder and you can either train a puppy yourself or you can get on a waiting list for a dog that’s already trained.”

“What kind of things could a service dog do,” Raven asks. 

“They can be trained to provide tactile stimulation, which can help interrupt a flashback or panic attack. They can get emergency medication, guard you so no one comes too close, or provide deep pressure, which can help with anxiety, sensory overwhelm, and pain.”

“I mean, that sounds great.”

“And beyond all that, it’s somebody to be there with you. Octavia, I know you’ve said it can be triggering to be alone. A service dog could keep you grounded in the present and keep you company.”

“That sounds really good,” Octavia says. 

“I can get you connected with a PTSD service dog organization. In the meantime, I think we should work on some more distress tolerance skills. We can keep trying the grounding exercises, and I want you to try doing those when you’re not in distress. That way you can associate them with being calm rather than being anxious or overwhelmed”

  
  


When the session is over, Raven brings up something she’s been trying to figure out talk about.

“O, since you’re coming home soon, I’m going to go home for a little bit and start getting things ready at the apartment. Do you want to stay in the same room as me?”

She thinks, then nods. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay. Do you want to sleep in the same bed?”

“Um…” Octavia looks perplexed and anxious, unsure of what she wants.

“There’s no wrong answer, hon. Just whatever you think will work best for you.”

“Maybe… maybe not at first.”

“Sounds good.”

“Will there be room?”

“Yeah. I’ll just get some single beds and put the queen bed in storage.”

“It’ll be like back in the college dorms.”

“Yeah. Let’s be real though, you barely ever slept in your bed.”

Octavia nods. “That’s true. Your roommate was gone more. How long will you be gone?”

“A day and a half. Bellamy’s gonna come stay here.”

“Okay.”

  
  
  


Later that day, Zoe Monroe comes over with a card for Harper. 

“Hey Octavia.”

“Hi.”

“I’ve got a card for you to write in.”

“Great. Thanks for getting that.” Octavia opens the card, and inside, Zoe has already written a paragraph in messy handwriting with little circles for the dots on the i’s. 

**_Harper,_ **

**_I know we haven’t really met. I’ve only seen you once. But we’re linked by our shared experiences. It’s not something I would ever choose or wish on anyone, but my heart feels heavy that you haven’t been able to talk yet with someone who really gets what you’ve been through. I hope that you are able to heal, mentally and physically. We are not permanently broken by our experiences, but we do have scars. They say that sunlight helps scars fade, and I think in the same way, being able to talk about our pain makes the burden lighter. I don’t know your exact experiences, but I want you to know that I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to._ **

**_-Zoe Monroe_ **

Octavia finds herself with tears in her eyes. The 15-year-old’s scratchings are more profound than anything she could hope to write.

“Octavia, are you okay?”

She nods. “That’s really good. What you wrote.”

“Oh, uh, thanks. I guess I just wrote what I would want to hear from her.”

  
  


Bellamy comes to the hospital and Raven gets ready to leave the next morning while Octavia is taking her morning medications. The patient currently takes about 27 pills throughout the day, with the morning having the largest amount. She takes multiple medications for her pain, a multivitamin, calcium and vitamin D for her bones multiple times per day, iron and potassium supplements, two antidepressants, an anxiety med, a regular sleeping pill, and a special as-needed sleeping pill for if she wakes up with night terrors. 

“So hon, you can call me if you need anything. I left my number on a sticky note there, or you can message me with your iPad if you want. And Anya’s here today and tomorrow if you need anything like a break outside.”

“I’ll be okay, Rae.”

“Okay. I just… if me leaving is too much, this stuff can wait.”

“As long as someone is here, I’ll be okay. Bell will be good company.”

“Alright. Can I give you a hug and a kiss?”

Octavia nods and Raven wraps her arms around her girlfriend and kisses her on the cheek.

“Love you,” Octavia says softly. 

“Love you too, O.”

  
  


Lexa comes back that day after texting Bellamy to see if Octavia is up for it. 

“Hi Octavia, how’s it going?”

“Fine.”

“I like your haircut.”

“Thanks.”

“Today I’d like to go over Emmerson’s house. And then if we have ime, we can talk about other ways he physically hurt you. Does that sound alright?”

Octavia nods.

“Do you want me to stay during this, O?” Bellamy asks.

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”

Lexa sits down beside Octavia on the opposite side of the bed from Bellamy. 

“So, I have some pictures of the house.” She puts her laptop on the over-the-bed table and wheels it so it’s in front of Octavia, then opens her phone to a recording app.

“With your permission, I’m going to record our conversation. It’s for my ears only, just so I can remember details later when I’m working on the case.”

Octavia nods and Lexa hits record, then goes to an email with picture attachments.

“Alright, I thought we’d just start with the first picture, the living room.” 

Bellamy can see the blood stain on the floor of the room.

“I was only in there once. That’s where I found his phone and called 911. The blood is mine. He had stabbed me and I had to drag myself upstairs and find his phone.”

The next picture is a bedroom with a queen sized bed, other furniture, some decorations and a window.

“I’ve never seen that room.”

They go through a kitchen and office that Octavia also had never seen, and then a picture of carpeted stairs with blood smeared up them.

“I went up those stairs to get help.”

“Were you normally allowed upstairs?”

“No. I could only be in my room or the downstairs bathroom.”

Lexa goes to the next picture, and it’s a small bathroom with a bathtub/shower combination. There are metal towel bars bolted into the wall next to the toilet and in the shower.

“That’s the bathroom I used. When I got to have a shower he’d handcuff me to the grab bar so I couldn’t go anywhere.”

The next picture is a dim room. It has a bed with a metal frame. Short chains are locked onto it at each of the four corners with metal cuffs at the ends. There’s a ton of blood on the bed and the floor and a bloody power cord is laying on the bed.

“That was my room. He’d chain me to the bed, sometimes just by an ankle, sometimes all four limbs. That day, I was only chained by an ankle. He left one of the cords he used to beat me with in the room within my reach. I hid it and waited till he came in and took off his pants. Then I kicked him in the groin and wrapped the power cord around his neck, got behind him and pulled. He tried to hit me but I was at an angle where he couldn’t really get me too hard. He got a knife out of his pocket and stabbed back at me and got me in the belly. I just kept holding the cord till I thought he was dead. I found the key to the cuff on my ankle on the key ring he had on his belt. I pulled the knife out of my belly and cut his dick off. And then I dragged myself upstairs to find his phone and call for help.”

“That was in incredibly brave,” Lexa says.

“I was just trying to survive.”

They see pictures of two other rooms with beds that Octavia says she’s never seen before.

“That was very helpful, Octavia. Thank you. What do you think of talking about Emerson’s physical abuse today? Do you want to wait for another day?”

“Let’s just do it.”

“Okay.”

They talk over the way he used to beat her. Bellamy clenches his hands and slowly tears up a styrofoam cup. They learn that Octavia’s burn marks are from Emerson’s fascination with heating up metal tools like pliers or screwdrivers, and then pressing them into her skin. She talks about times he hit her and she could feel her bones break. They count up the rough number of times he hurt her and it’s easily in the thousands. After the time with Lexa, Octavia’s body is jumpy and she keeps finding her fingernails digging into her skin. She isn’t hyperventilating or crying, but she feels like she wants to crawl out of her skin.

“Bell, I think I need something.”

“What do you need?”

“Something for anxiety.”

“Okay.”

They press the nurse button and Anya comes in after a minute.

“What’s up?”

“I-I need something for my anxiety. Not too heavy. I don’t want to be knocked out, I just want to have a little... traction.”

“Sure. Your doctor has an order for .25 mg of Ativan. That dose might make you a little tired but won’t knock you out like those big doses of Valium.”

“Okay.”

“Alright I’ll be back in a minute.”

Bellamy notices that Octavia’s fingernails are leaving scrapes behind as she nervously claws at her arms. 

“Hey, do you have any strategies your counselor has taught you for when you’re anxious?”

“Uh… yeah, there’s some papers in the purple folder on the counter.”

Bellamy looks through the papers and finds one he thinks he can try with her.

“Let’s try this progressive muscle relaxation exercise.”

Octavia nods. Bellamy talks her through noticing, tensing, and relaxing her muscles from her toes to her face. Midway through, Anya comes back with the Ativan, twists the syringe onto the med port of the IV, and pushes it slowly. Bellamy continues leading Octavia through the exercise. The ativan and the exercise help. She’s not totally calm, but she doesn’t feel so close to a panic attack. 

She ends up seeing her neurologist later in the afternoon for a follow-up. He does the same test he had done shortly after she arrived, and she has improved by quite a bit. Her headaches now only come at the end of particularly long days and her processing speed has improved. Dr. Kane says she still has issues comprehending complex information and it would be a good idea for her to get advice before making any finance- or life-impacting decisions, but he’s pleased with her progress and expects to see more as she continues to heal.

Raven texts late in the afternoon asking Bellamy for an update on how his Octavia is doing. She’s incredibly proud that Octavia could get through a panic attack with a lower amount of medication. Bellamy reminds her to actually take a break now, and tells her he expects to not hear from her till she comes back tomorrow. She says she’ll try her best and wishes them a good evening. 

  
  


  
  
  
  



	12. Chapter 12

It’s been determined by Octavia’s doctors that she’ll be going home in 2 days. She’s excited but scared at the same time. It’ll still be busy, with PT, OT, counseling, and doctors appointments, she’ll be at the hospital almost every day anyway. 

She sees a cardiologist, but she’s not a lot of help. She says Octavia’s high heart rates could be due to muscle loss in her heart from her starvation but it’s not high enough currently to warrant medication. 

Dr Warren, her psychiatrist, adjusts her antidepressants to see if they can reduce her panic attacks. She says she feels comfortable sending Octavia home with sublingual ativan in case of especially bad panic attacks. 

Anya had given her two-weeks’ notice a few days before, so she can come work with Octavia as a caregiver in a week and a half. In the meantime, Bellamy is going to come stay in the guest room at their apartment to help take care of Octavia. 

“O, a bunch of news stations have reached out. So far I’ve just told them that you appreciate privacy as you take time to heal and are happy to be back with family. They wanted to know if you had anything to say,” Raven says after checking her email one day.

“Oh. Uh, I don’t know.”

“It’s okay if you don’t. I just wanted to check. Monroe made a statement a couple of days after she went home.” 

“I don’t think I really have anything to say. what did Monroe say?”

“Hang on, I’ll pull it up.” She finds a news article covering it, then reads aloud, ”Thank you to all the doctors and nurses who have helped me begin to heal. Thank you to the police department and emergency medical technicians who helped us to get out. I’m forever indebted to Octavia Blake for risking her life to call the police. Although I was not afforded kindness or compassion by Emerson, I have kept those traits for myself. Although he tried to break me, I remain whole. I’m thankful to be reunited with my family and appreciate the privacy that has been given to me to allow for healing.”

“Damn. That girl has more poise than I ever will.”

“It’s definitely not a competition.”

“No, it’s a good thing. I’m so glad she seems to be thriving now that she’s out of that hellhole.”

Raven nods. “Let me know if you decide you want to put out a statement.”

“Okay.”

  
  


And then it’s finally time to bring her home. Raven brings some clothes she had bought for Octavia, since all her old clothes would certainly be too big at this point. She’s at about 92 pounds. Raven helps her into a stretchy long-sleeved sweater and some leggings. Her re-set arm and knees are still in braces, but she can take them off to put on clothes or take a shower, which is nice. Bellamy and Raven pack up their cars with the bags and stuff that has accumulated over the past few weeks while nursing assistants get Octavia into a wheelchair and make sure all her paperwork is signed. 

A few of her doctors, many nursing assistants and several nurses gather for her exit and clap and cheer. It feels really weird and Octavia isn’t sure she likes it even though she knows their intention is good. They get out to Bellamy’s SUV and he lifts her into the passenger seat. Raven will drive her own car and meet them there. The half hour drive is mostly quiet, Octavia looking out at views she had forgotten about in her windowless room in Emerson’s basement. When they get to the apartment complex, Bellamy gets her into the wheelchair they’re renting and wheels her toward the apartment. Raven is already inside. 

“Hey, I’ll show you around.”

She takes over pushing the wheelchair, showing her the kitchen, the living room, the guest room, a guest bathroom, a laundry closet, a patio, and their bedroom and connected bathroom. Raven had set up two beds, one with a pretty purple comforter, the other with an olive green one. There’s a shower chair already set up in the bathroom for her too. 

“You wanna take a little snooze, O?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not tired.”

“Alright, what do you want to do?”

She shrugs. “Watch a movie or something?”

Bellamy lifts her onto the couch and they scroll through Netflix for almost 45 minutes before finding something they can all agree on. 

That night, Octavia brushes her teeth and washes her face. She takes off her knee and arm braces and gets her own pajama shirt on. She still needs help getting her pajama pants on and getting onto the toilet, but she’s proud of how far she’s come. Raven lifts her into the bed with the purple comforter and she puts her braces back on for sleep. 

“Do you think you’ll be warm enough?”

“I think so.”

“I put an extra blanket at the end of your bed. I know you still have trouble sitting up because of your abdominal injury so let me know if you need help getting it.”

“Okay. I’m good, Rae.”

Raven smiles at her. “Can I give you a kiss?”

She nods and smiles when Raven kisses her on the mouth.

Raven gets into her own bed and shuts off the light. 

Several minutes go by. 

“Rae?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Well, it’s just… it’s so quiet.”

“Hmmm. We could download a sound machine app on your iPad.”

She nods and pulls it from the nightstand. Her fine motor skills aren’t what they used to be because of her broken arm, so she has to backspace several times before she’s typed the right thing in the App Store search bar. She finds one that seems good.

“Is 2.99 okay?”

“Of course.”

She buys it and a few minutes later, tries she sounds till she finds one she likes. 

“Is that a little better, hon.”

“Yeah.” She turns out her light again but doesn’t actually fall asleep for another 2 hours. 

  
  
  


Octavia wakes up the next morning and realizes she’s alone. She tries to quell her panic. Tries to tell herself that Raven is just a few rooms away. But she can’t help that her body thinks she’s _there_ again. She barely breathes for several minutes, then breaks down into heavy sobs. She’s not sure how much later, Raven comes in and tries to soothe her.

“Hey honey. Can you focus on your toes? Can you wiggle them for me?”

It’s a grounding technique they’ve tried in the past that’s been fairly effective. But this time, it doesn’t seem to help.

“Baby, it’s alright. You’re not there. You’re not alone. I’m here.”

It takes two hours and a sublingual Ativan for her to calm down because as soon as she start calming down again, she’s reminded all over again of her thoughts of not being safe; not being here with Raven, still being stuck alone chained to a bed. Raven finally is able to get her into her wheelchair and over to the kitchen. Octavia’s appetite is nonexistent, but she takes a few bites of the eggs Raven makes to appease her and to not take her morning meds on an empty stomach. They spend the rest of the day watching movies on the couch. Octavia wants Raven to sit close to her on the couch and puts her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder for a while. 

Raven goes back to work after four days, and Bellamy stays with her during the days. They listen to music or he has her read off of recipe cards while he mixes ingredients. One night after work, Raven brings up something she thought would be an easy conversation. Bellamy is out grocery shopping for them. 

“Hey O, I was thinking now that you’re at home we should set you up with a dentist appointment.”

Octavia looks up with an unreadable expression. 

“Are you good with that?”

“Um…” she’s turning white and Raven becomes concerned. 

“You okay?”

She stares into the distance.

“Octavia?”

She flinches and her eyes focus on Raven. 

“Are you okay? Do you need Ativan?”

“I… I’m…” she takes a breath. “I’m okay. ”

“Where did you go?”

“I don’t want to deal with this.”

“Now, or ever? Because eventually you’re going to need to see a dentist.”

Octavia puts her head in her hands, clearly overwhelmed.

“O, talk to me.”

“Raven, there are some things you don’t need to know. You know so many disgusting details of how I was tortured by Emerson. This one, I’m keeping. You don’t have a right to know everything. They’re _my_ memories. _My_ trauma.”

Raven is a bit stunned but eventually answers, “okay.”

“I’m tired.”

“You wanna go to bed?”

She nods. 

Raven lifts her into her wheelchair and wheels her to the bathroom. They’re mostly silent as they get ready for bed. 

“You good if I take a shower?”

Octavia nods. 

They don’t bring up that conversation again. Octavia knows Raven is right, that eventually she’ll have to see a dentist; have to face another piece of her trauma she hasn’t talked about, but she’s not ready yet.

  
  


Anya starts with Octavia a week and a half after she’s out of the hospital. The woman is so sure and capable that it puts everyone at ease. Raven shows her around the house and she’s already familiar with most of Octavia’s routines. Raven also shows her the baby monitor she had hidden in the back of her bedside table drawer so if Octavia has a panic attack, she’ll hear it sooner. She’s slightly guilty about it, but would rather be there for Octavia when she needs her than be transparent about everything. 

Octavia much prefers Anya helping her dress, get into the shower, and transfer to the toilet. She tries her best to get these done while Anya is around during the day so at night, she and Raven can have a more normal relationship. Of course, on the weekends, Anya doesn’t come, so then Raven takes over the caregiving duties. 

On weekdays, Octavia usually wakes up around 7:30am. Anya helps her in her morning routine, makes her breakfast, and then it’s usually time for a therapy appointment. In physical therapy, Octavia is strengthening her core, which is still pain from her broken ribs and abdominal wound. She’s also working on shoulder strength. In OT, she’s working on her fine motor skills like picking up small items and pressing buttons on a phone screen. And in counseling, she and Niylah are working through a book on PTSD with lots of mindfulness and grounding techniques as well as education on the disorder. By the afternoons, she’s typically exhausted and needs a couple hour nap. Her doctors say this is from a combination of her head injury and her trauma, and say she should try to have a consistent sleep schedule to help her healing. In the evenings, Raven cooks and they watch light movies. 

  
  


Octavia wakes up on a Saturday a few weeks after she arrives home with horrible pain emanating from her back and abdomen. She feels nauseous and she’s trying to figure out what’s going on when she notices something wet under her. She lifts the covers back and there’s a pool of blood beneath her. 

“Fuck.” She starts shaking. The pain in her abdomen and the blood bring back a flood of terrifying memories from when she had been stabbed by Emerson. Several minutes later, Raven walks in.

“O, do you want--” she stops, eyes widening when she sees the blood and she’s by Octavia’s side in a flash.

“Holy shit. What happened? Where is it coming from?” 

“I d-don’t know,” Octavia stammers.

“Uh, um, do you think it’s your period?” Raven has never seen this amount of blood before and is actually starting to feel dizzy. 

“Th-that… That would make sense.”

“Do you feel okay?”

“I’ve got cramps. I think it _is_ my period.”

“Okay. Do you want to go to the ER? Do you feel weak?”

“I really really don’t want to go to the ER.”

“Alright, I’m just gonna text Anya and see what she thinks. Normally I’d totally follow your lead. It’s just a LOT of blood.” Raven is pale as she pulls out her phone, and takes a picture, then texts Anya. 

“Alright love, I’m thinking our best strategy is going to be wrapping you in a robe to get you to the bathroom and avoid getting too much blood on the carpet.”

“Yeah, that could be an awkward conversation with the landlord.”

Raven puts a couple of blankets on the floor just in case, then wraps Octavia up in a bathrobe and helps her into the wheelchair. In the bathroom, she gets her into her shower chair before she starts removing her blood soaked clothing. She’s graduated to only wearing her braces during the day, since she doesn’t move much in her sleep, meaning the braces are spared from the mess. 

“Is it alright if I just toss your pajamas?”

Octavia nods. While she showers, Raven strips the sheets and comforter off the bed and puts them in the laundry tub with cold water. The mattress cover is also a mess, but fortunately the actual mattress is spared. Raven hears Octavia making noise in the bathroom and hurries back in to find her throwing up in the shower, clutching at her scarred abdomen.

“O, I think we should bring you in.”

“N-no,” Octavia moans between heaves.

Raven sighs in exasperation. 

“Can we call Dr Foster’s office instead? I just don’t want to spend hours waiting in the ER for a doctor who barely understands periods,” Octavia says when there’s a reprieve from the vomiting.

Raven thinks then nods. She goes to find the number while Octavia finishes showering and helps her dress while on hold for a nurse. By some stroke of luck, Dr Foster actually has Saturday appointments and can squeeze them in for an appointment in a couple of hours. Until then, Raven tucks Octavia into her own bed with a heating pad, naproxen, tylenol, and some ginger tea for the nausea. Octavia has to get up every half hour to change her pad. It’s exhausting. Finally, they load her up in the car and go to the hospital. She leans her seat back in the car because of the bad cramping and throws up again in the waiting room. 

Finally, they’re in an exam room waiting for Dr Foster. The doctor comes in, pumping some hand sanitizer into her hands and rubbing it in as she greets them. 

She listens to them explain the situation and then looks at the picture Raven took of the bloody bed.

“Goodness. That is a lot of blood. And you said you’re having to change your pad about every half hour?”

Octavia nods. 

Dr Foster smiles grimly at her. “You know what I’m going to say next, right?”

“You have to do an exam?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I’m gonna need a sedative.”

Dr Foster nods. 

“I’ll order that. Since you’re not admitted, we have to do a pill instead of an injection, so I’ll come back about 45 minutes after you take it.”

It’s a long day. Dr. Foster does the exam and Octavia is sedated enough to not have a panic attack. She clutches Raven’s hand tightly through the whole thing. The doctor also has the lab draw some blood to check her red blood cell levels as well as some hormonal levels. The exam comes out fine. Her red blood cells are on several points lower than a few weeks ago, putting them at the high end of low and Dr Foster says they’ll likely drop more in the next few days if Octavia continues to bleed as she has been. She wants to monitor Octavia but says she can come back for a follow-up in a few days. In the meantime, she puts Octavia on an iron supplement, Tylenol 3 to help her cramps, and zofran for her nausea. 

The next week and a half Octavia pretty much stays in bed. They skip therapies because any time

Octavia is upright for more than a few minutes, she ends up throwing up. Between the zofran and Tylenol 3, she’s pretty mellow. She goes back to Dr Foster in a few days and her hemoglobin is even lower, so they end up doing an IV iron infusion. Finally, after 2 weeks, it stops. Dr Foster puts her on birth control to manage future periods and life seems to fall back into routine. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. Chapter 13

The true bill of indictment, a thorough document with everything they are currently charging Emerson with, is released a month and a half after Octavia, Monroe, and Harper were rescued. At the Blake-Reyes household, they don’t watch the news so they just hear about it from Lexa. She informs them that Emerson plans to plead not guilty to all charges. Raven keeps up with the news online but doesn’t share it with Octavia, knowing she has enough stress. Octavia’s PTSD symptoms worsen for a few days before and after this, and she spends most of these days with at least a fair amount of Ativan in her system. She’s also seeing Niylah 3 times a week. It’s a lot of work, and sometimes she feels like she doesn’t have a lot to talk about, but Niylah always seems to find something.

Anya has been trying to get Octavia outside every day either before or after her various therapies. Sometimes they just sit on the patio. Other times, they go for walks. Anya bundles Octavia up in so many layers that she’s usually sweating by the time they get back to the house. 

One afternoon when they’re walking, Octavia suddenly flinches.

“O?” Anya questions. When she doesn’t respond, Anya moves around to the front of the wheelchair. Octavia is staring fixedly at a man walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Anya has seen enough of Emerson on the news to know this guy looks eerily similar.

“Octavia?”

She still doesn’t answer. She’s gone deathly pale and a fine tremor has started throughout her body.

“You’re safe,” Anya says. Her first instinct is to bring her back to the house, but she also doesn’t want Octavia to fear being outside.

“O, the man who is walking over there is not Emmerson. I know he looks like him. But he’s not him. He’s going away, and we will continue to be here and be safe. I won’t let anyone hurt you. And I know that you’ve been hurt before. But you’re here now, not there.”

Octavia lets out a shaky breath.

“Can you wiggle your toes for me?”

She does and nods stiffly.

“Can you feel your feet on the footrests?”

She nods again.

“How about your body on the seat?”

“Yeah,” She whispers. She puts her hands on her knees as she had done many times before in the grounding technique.

“You’re here.”

“I’m here.”

“You’re safe.”

“I’m safe.”

Octavia breathes deeply. She’s still shaking but feels calm enough that she’s pretty sure she won’t have a full-blown panic attack. They cut the walk shorter than normal, but Anya feels like the outing was more successful than she could have hoped for.

  
  


Octavia is finally cleared by her orthopedic doctor to work on standing and walking again. She goes to PT the next day excited, but also nervous. She doesn’t exactly know how long it’s been since she walked but knows it’s been a long time. She’s tired of being lifted and carried and wants to gain back her independence. Anya comes back with her for PT because she still can’t self-regulate when she has a panic attack and needs someone else to give her meds or walk her through grounding techniques or mindfulness exercises. Octavia’s physical therapist, Indra, has been having her work on her core, glute, and quad strength while laying down or sitting to help her toward the goal of standing and walking. The PT moves the table in the therapy room so Octavia can just sit on the edge of it. She has a walker positioned in front of Octavia and a PT belt around her waist in case she falls.

“Alright Octavia, I’m just going to have you lean forward, let your momentum pull you forward, and then push up with your quads and your hands on the walker, okay?”

“‘Kay.”

“Alright, when you’re ready.”

Octavia leans forward and pushes herself to stand. Her muscles shake furiously.

“Good. You think you can hold this for 30 seconds?”

Octavia nods. After a few seconds, a wave of dizziness hits her. Black spots seep into her vision and she squints, panting as she hears her heartbeat in her ears.

“You good, Octavia?”

“Yeah, just…” Her vision goes black. 

She wakes up soaked in sweat. She’s on the ground with her legs propped up on a chair and Anya is taking her pulse. There’s a cold washcloth on her forehead and Indra is looking down at her in concern.

“Shit.”

“Hey,” Anya says.

“Hey.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your pulse was racing when you first passed out. It's starting to slow down now.”

“How embarrassing.”

Anya smirks and rubs Octavia’s shoulder.

“We’re going to keep you here for another couple of minutes and then we’ll prop you up for a little bit so you can drink something.”

They get her up slowly and it goes fine, but they decide to be done for the day and try again next time. Octavia is annoyed at another roadblock in her recovery but determined to get back to walking. They hope that it’s a one-off, maybe due to dehydration or a bug Octavia’s fighting off. Anya isn’t sure though. She remembers the wonky response Octavia’s body had in the hospital to just sitting up and wonders if it’s an arrhythmia or something else. She doesn’t voice these concerns but keeps an eye on Octavia for signs of cardiac distress. 

“How’d PT go today,” Raven asks as she’s unpacking her lunch bag into the garbage and dishwasher.

Octavia sighs. “I passed out.”

“Really? Do you know why?”

“No. I got up for the first time and started getting dizzy and then blacked out. Anya said I had a fast heart rate.”

“Huh. Maybe you just got up too fast?”

“I mean, with my weak muscles, it was pretty slow. Indra said maybe my body just isn’t used to standing.”

“Hmmm.”

“Just another thing keeping me from actually being able to function like a normal person.”

Raven nods, frowning.

“You’ll get there, honey.”

“I know. I just… I hate relying on you and Anya and Bellamy for everything. I want to be able to go to the bathroom or put on pants without someone helping me. Especially my brother.”

“I get that. But I hope you know we don’t mind doing it. I’m just glad you’re here, whatever that looks like.”

Octavia nods. 

That weekend, Raven and Octavia go on a trip to a suburb on the opposite side of Chicago from them. They’ve been researching puppies to become a service dog for Octavia. It’s likely because of some of her injuries that she might need some mobility assistance, so getting a purebred dog with the right temperament and physique is important. They decide to raise and train the puppy partially themselves and partially with a trainer, in order to have the puppy specialize in the tasks Octavia needs. They find a breeder who almost exclusively breeds dogs to be service animals. When they arrive at her house, Raven gets Octavia into her wheelchair and wheels her to the front door. There’s actually a wheelchair ramp onto the porch, which is pleasantly surprising. When they ring the doorbell, a kind-looking woman answers the door and brings them to a large room where 5 golden retriever puppies are playing. The woman explains that her husband has a form of muscular dystrophy and has had several service dogs. She decided to start breeding and training the puppies when she found out how difficult and expensive it was to get one.

Octavia is bent forward so far in her wheelchair to pet the puppies that Raven is worried she’s going to tumble out. 

“Hon, do you want to sit on the floor?”

“Yeah.”

Raven helps her do that, and they both watch the puppies play and interact with them. Octavia finds special interest in a darker golden brown puppy that seems to play gently and attend to what others are doing. After a long time of playing, the puppy yawns and curls against Octavia’s leg while it falls asleep. The breeder says his current name is Toasty, but he doesn’t know his name and it can easily be changed. He still needs a few weeks with his mom before he’s ready to be adopted. Raven and Octavia decide to sleep on the decision and call the woman the next day on their decision. But Raven already knows from seeing how Octavia’s body seemed to relax and her eyes sparkled that they will be adopting the puppy.

  
  


Raven has been neglecting therapy lately. Between work and taking care of Octavia, she’s not sure when she’s supposed to find time to do it. The counseling office has called her twice, but she’s not sure what to say. She knows it’s important, but just can’t prioritize it above work or her girlfriend.

  
  


On Monday at 5 pm, Raven gets a phone call from Lexa Woods.

“Hello?”

“Is this Raven?”

“Yes.”

“Hi Raven, are you with Octavia?”

“Yes.”

“Would you be able to put me on speaker so both of you can hear me?”

“Uh, sure. Hon, it’s Lexa on the phone. She wants to talk to us.”

“Oh.”

“Alright, can you both hear me?”

“Yup.”

“I wanted to call you before it broke in the news. There’s been a development in Emerson’s case.”

Octavia has a pang of anxiety hit her in the chest.

“There were human remains found buried in Emerson’s yard. The police suspect it was another victim. They’re checking dental records with missing persons reports in the area.”

Raven can see Octavia’s anxiety rising as she struggles to compose herself.

“I just thought you’d rather find out that information from me.”

“Yeah, thanks, Lexa.”

“I’ll let you two go. Call me if you have any questions.” She hangs up and Raven turns to Octavia, who has tears swimming in her eyes as she sucks in and pushes out jerky breaths.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I--” Octavia breaks down into a heavy sob. “Why did--” more sobbing. She can barely catch a breath.

“Hon, do you wanna take something?”

“I have a--” she sobs, “a r-r-right to feel upset.”

“You absolutely do. I’m just wondering if you’d be more comfortable. I don’t want you to go catatonic or anything.”

“I d-don’t WANT ANYTHING!” Her voice is a loud cry and as soon as she finishes her proclamation, she breaks down into several sobs in a row.

“Okay. Alright. Can I... hug you?”

She shakes her head and covers her face with her hands.

Raven takes a deep breath, trying to suppress her own emotions so she can be there for Octavia. 

“I--I think I’m going to be sick,” Octavia says, covering her mouth. Raven swiftly grabs the trash can. Octavia pauses for a few moments over it, breathing shakily before throwing up. Raven wants to stroke her back but forces herself not to, knowing Octavia is too tense to be comforted by her touch. When she’s done throwing up, she sits there, breathing shakily and balancing her head on her left hand. Raven grabs a glass of water and a paper towel and hands them to Octavia. After a few minutes, Octavia speaks up.

“I want to go to my bed.”

“Okay.” Raven wheels her to the bedroom since Octavia is still too weak to do it on her own. Octavia sets her glass of water on the bedside table.

“Alright, ready?”

She nods, not meeting her eyes, and Raven scoops her up under her knees and behind her back. She plops her in bed and glances down at her. Octavia's muscles are twitching from the tension she’s carrying in her body.

“Do you need anything?”

“I just… think I want to be alone.”

That is something she hasn’t heard once since Octavia came back into her life. Sure, she’s been alone for short periods of time. But she’s never asked for it.

“Oh. Okay. I’ll just be in the living room, okay? Let me know if you need anything.”

Octavia nods.

As she starts leaving, Octavia pipes up again.

“Can you shut the door?”

“Um, sure.”

Raven exits and shuts the door. She goes to the living room and grabs a pillow, stuffing her face into it before she lets out a sob. She thinks about if it had been Octavia’s remains that had been found. It easily could have been. With the furious rages it sounds like Emerson went on, he easily could have killed Octavia. That thought overwhelms her. She suddenly turns back toward the door to their bedroom, wiping her tears off her face. If she’s overwhelmed, she can’t imagine how Octavia feels.  _ Does she have survivor’s guilt? Does she wish it had been her? Does she feel relieved it wasn’t her?  _ Raven goes to the kitchen and grabs the monitor connected with Octavia’s baby monitor that’s stuffed in the back of a kitchen drawer. She listens as Octavia switches between crying jags and bouts of heavy breathing. Her chest aches. She wants to make this go away. Wants to give Octavia something to help, whether it’s a pill or a hug or a backrub. But Octavia wanted her to go away, so she respects that. She waits around in the kitchen for an hour and a half, picking her cuticles till they bleed, before things quiet down in the bedroom. She assumes Octavia is either calmed down, asleep or both. She goes to the couch and scrolls through Netflix for an hour before turning on Parks and Rec. She finally slips into the bedroom at 12pm. Octavia is laying in bed, presumably asleep. Raven wonders if she should wake her up to take her sleeping pill. _ If she’s sleeping, does that mean she doesn’t need it? _ Raven isn’t sure. She decides to have the pill out in case Octavia wakes up on her own and also sets out her as-needed sleep medications in case she has a night terror. That wouldn’t be surprising at all, after today. 

In the morning, Octavia doesn’t wake up by the time Anya comes. Raven explains what happened before she leaves. She wants to go in and wake Octavia up, make sure she’s okay and they’re okay before she leaves her all day, but she restrains herself. Instead, she sends a message to Octavia’s iPad for her to read when she wakes up.

**I don’t always know the right thing to say or do, but I know I love you and want to be here however it’s helpful for you. See you tonight. -Rae**

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for your comments on this story! They really help me to want to keep writing. As I said before, I'm starting up a pretty busy time of year, so updates may be coming a little farther apart, but I'm going to try my best to continue with this story till it comes to a conclusion.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's pretty graphic, so trigger warning if you’re squeamish or triggered by discussion of suicidality

When Anya finally wakes Octavia up so she has time to get ready for therapy, her arms are covered in long, scabbed scratches, clearly self-inflicted. Anya glances at them and runs her fingers down one of them. Octavia shies away from the touch and looks away.

“We should clean these,” Anya says.

“Sorry.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“Well, I’m judging me.”

Anya nods. She gets some alcohol wipes from the first aid kit in the bathroom and wipes the scratches, then spreads triple antibiotic on them. They go through the rest of Octavia’s morning routine without talking much. She doesn’t want to eat, but Anya eventually gets her to take a couple of bites of toast so she can take her meds. Then they drive to therapy.

“How are you today,” Niylah asks.

Octavia shrugs. She’s having a hard time looking at anyone in the eyes today, afraid they’ll see through to how bad she feels. 

“You seem… like you’ve got something on your mind.”

“They found a body. Buried in Emerson’s yard.”

“Oh.”

“I couldn’t stop crying last night. I… I scratched up my arms pretty bad.” She pulls up her sleeves, showing Niylah the marks. 

“What were you thinking about when you did this?”

“I don’t know. A lot of things.”

Niylah waits.

“How much I wished that body that had been found was mine. What a selfish bitch I am for thinking that, because of how hard it would be for Bell and Raven.”

Niylah nods.

“I’m just… tired.”

“That is incredibly valid. You’ve been through so much. And this recovery hasn’t been smooth or easy.”

“I freaked out at Raven.”

“Tell me more about that.”

“I screamed at her and then told her I wanted to be alone. I know she was just trying to help, but sometimes… it feels like she just wants my feelings to go away. Like she wants to fix me. But I-I can’t be fixed.”

“Do you think you  _ need  _ to be fixed?”

Octavia shrugs. “I’m definitely broken.”

“What makes you say that?”

Octavia glares at Niylah. “I can’t do anything. I can’t regulate my emotions. I freak out at dumb things. I can’t follow conversations if they’re too complex. My brain doesn’t do things right.”

“That’s interesting. Because I think that those things are very natural responses to the physical and emotional abuse you experienced. ”

“So?”

“So you weren’t broken by Emerson. You were conditioned. Your nervous system was trained to respond the way you do, either by freezing up, by fighting, or by wanting to get away. We’re working on reprogramming it so you have more typical responses to experiences.”

“What about wishing I had died there? Is that a conditioned response? Or just me being too weak to deal with stuff?”

“I’d certainly say it’s a very human response. You might consider it a flight response, wanting to escape your current feelings or experiences. Do you want to die now?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice breaks.

“Do you have plans to harm yourself, Octavia?”

“I don’t know. I’m just so tired,” she says, tears in her voice.

“I think we should talk about a safety plan. In case you felt the desire to harm yourself. Who could you talk to?”

Octavia shrugs, pressing her quivering lips together as she tries to suppress more tears.

“Would you talk to Raven?”

“The look she would give me… It’s like I’m breaking her too. I know she tries not to let me see, but I’m wrecking her. She’s exhausted, and she barely goes out anymore since I got back. Before… she used to go out with friends all the time.  _ We  _ used to.”

“We can talk more about that, but right now I want to focus on your safety plan. Could you talk to Bellamy or Anya?”

“I guess Anya.”

“Okay, good. What would you say?”

“That I feel like hurting myself.”

Niylah nods. “What if Anya wasn’t available?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’d have to talk to Raven then.”

“Do you think you could do that?”

“I guess.”

“Okay.”

She goes home feeling weird and out of it. Like she’s watching herself from the outside. She tells Anya she’s tired and wants a nap. In her room, though, she doesn’t sleep. She stares at the wall for a long time. It feels like back in Emerson’s house, where she’d stare at the wall for hours and hours, memorizing each irregularity in the paint. Octavia opens the drawer to the night stand, intending on taking an ativan. But she notices the other bottles there. After a long moment, she pulls out bottles of painkillers, sleeping pills, and multiple anti anxiety meds. She stares at the bottles.  _ Is she really going to do this?  _ She’s careful to be quiet as she pours about 20 of the first pill into her hand. She takes them in with swigs of water, then a handful of the next bottle, then the next. Things don’t feel real anymore. It’s like she’s in a dream.

After a long time, she pulls from her pocket a razor head she had snatched from the bathtub while Anya had given her privacy in the bathroom. She clutches each side of the razor head with her blanket and twists it until the plastic breaks and the blades come loose. She picks one up in her fingers, almost immediately dropping it because of her poor fine motor skills. She sighs and picks it up again, clutching it roughly, so the edge accidentally digs into her finger. A few red drops fall on her purple duvet. She stares down at the spots, up at her thumb, which has a large droplet of blood welled up on it. She flips over her left wrist. There’s still scarring from fighting against the metal cuffs in Emerson’s house. Her heart is thumping in her chest. Her breathing picks up. She shouldn’t. But she needs to feel  _ something _ . She lets out a dry sob. Lips quivering, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and sinks the blade into her wrist. It hurts in a grounding sort of way, like she knows where she is. She keeps digging, running the same line over and over. Suddenly the pain isn’t comforting, it’s sharp, all-consuming, breath-taking. She shudders and opens her eyes, looking down at her wrist, seeing blood spurting out of the cut in bursts. It’s hot on her hand and it’s splattering onto the sheets and soaking in. It’s going too fast. She had wanted this, but now that it’s happening, it’s all wrong. She pictures Raven finding her, the heart-breaking wail that would come out of her as she realized what had happened. Blood is soaking into her shirt and pants, now, dripping off her wrist and elbow. She’s not sure she wants this, but this is what she chose. She wants to call for help, but she’s sure they can’t handle this at home, and she doesn’t want to go to the hospital again. She starts breathing rapidly, continuing to watch as blood soaks through her sweatpants and the hem of her shirt, making them stick to her skin. She loses track of time and after a while, she notices black dots invading her vision, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. The smell of all the blood is starting to make her nauseous. It’s soaked into the sheets, and now is pooling on top.

There’s a knock on the door, and she nearly jumps out of her skin.

“O, you doing okay?”

She stares at the door, half of her wanting Anya to burst in and help her, the other half wanting her to go away.

“A-Anya,” she says in a small voice. It’s so quiet she’s sure the woman didn’t hear her, but then then Anya knocks again and slowly opens the door. 

“Are you--” She stops mid-sentence, staring at Octavia’s wrist and the bloody sheets surrounding her. Realization floods her face and she goes all business. She strides over quickly, taking Octavia’s wrist and shucking her sweatshirt off to press it hard against the wound. 

“Ow.”

“It’s okay.”

“A-Anya I didn’t… I’m…” Her breaths are coming too fast. Blood is seeping through the sweatshirt as it continues to pulse out of her. 

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Tears well up in her eyes and a great sob shutters its way through her. 

“You’re alright. I’m gonna call for an ambulance.”

“It’s not that bad,” she says, teeth chattering. Her hands and face are tingling.

Anya ignores her protest and pulls her phone out of her pocket, dialing 911 and pressing call, then turning it on speaker.

“Please,  _ don’t. _ ”

An operator answers after a few rings and Anya calmly and quickly tells them the address.

“What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“I have a 24-year-old woman with a deep vertical wrist laceration. Radial artery’s been hit. Hemmoraging with pulse. I’m an RN. I’m going to tourniquet her arm.”

“Is the victim awake?”

“Yes.”

“How’s her breathing and pulse?”

“Breathing is pretty fast. She’s Tachycardic. ”

“Is she responsive?”

“O, how are you doing?”

Octavia is pale and looking down at the ground, hyperventilating. 

“I think she’s going into shock.”

Anya pulls the sweatshirt off the wound, and the blood spurts like a water gun. 

“Okay. Alright.” Anya searches around and finds a hairbrush and a hair elastic on the dresser. She brings it over and wraps her sweatshirt sleeve around Octavia’s arm above the cut. She then uses the hairbrush handle as a windlass to tighten the sleeve around her arm till the wound stops spurting blood. She uses the hair elastic to hold the brush in place. Last, she grabs a pen from the nightstand and writes “14:07” on Octavia’s arm above the makeshift tourniquet. 

“Alright, the tourniquet’s on. I wrote the time on her arm.”

“Has the wound stopped bleeding?”

“Yes.”

“EMTs are about 4 minutes out. How much blood do you think she’s lost?”

Anya looks around at the bloodied sheets and Octavia’s blood soaked clothes.

“God, maybe…600 mls? She’s really tiny, though. I don’t think she’s even made it up to 95 lbs, so she probably only has about 6 pints of blood. O, let’s lay you down, alright?” Anya guides her to lay down and Octavia doesn’t protest.

The EMTs ring the doorbell and Anya goes to answer it. She leads in 2 EMTs who check her pulse, blood pressure, and O2 sats. Her pulse is high, blood pressure is low, and her O2 is somewhat low as well. They quickly transfer her to a stretcher and get her outside and into the ambulance. Octavia keeps losing spaces of time, weaving in and out of consciousness. Suddenly, she has two IV lines: one in her foot, one in her right hand, and there’s oxygen tubing tickling her nose. Things seem to skip forward and Anya’s on the phone.

“Raven, she tried to hurt herself. She… she tried to kill herself. She slit her wrists.”

Octavia breaks down crying.

“You’re gonna be okay,” says one of the EMTs, as if that wasn’t the exact problem. Then they’re in an exam room and someone is asking Octavia questions she can’t seem to hold onto long enough to answer. They take some blood, which seems weird since she’s already lost a lot, but then she realizes someone must have figured out that she had taken pills too. Or maybe it’s just protocol.

Then someone’s sticking a tube up her nose and people are holding her head and her arms so she can’t fight it. It’s going down her throat and she’s gagging, and then she’s throwing up grey-black sludge that she doesn’t remember ingesting. Then there’s a doctor in a mask stitching up her wrist carefully. It hurts terribly, but Octavia has a good poker face when it comes to pain. At some point, someone must have put her wrist in the weird brace it’s currently in that flexes it forward so it’s curled in on itself.

  
  


And then Raven’s there, looking paler and more scared than Octavia’s ever seen her look. She’s got bags under her eyes, and Octavia’s wondering if they’ve been there for a long time and she just hasn’t noticed.

“Octavia, can you hear me?”

She looks up, unsure how much time has passed. Raven and a doctor are talking. Anya’s nowhere to be seen.

“We’re going to admit you to the hospital for observation and to adjust your medications.”

“I don’t want to,” she says in a small voice.

“I know,” says Raven. “But we need to keep you safe.”

Octavia’s eyes fill with tears and she brings her knees up--she finally can, after so long of not having good range of motion--and hugs them, burying her face in the space between her knees and chest. She thinks about what this means.  _ Will she go to the psych ward? Will Raven be able to be with her? Will Raven even want to be with her, or is she mad at her? Does she even want Raven there? How long will she have to stay there? How dehumanizing will this be?  _ People try to engage with her but she tunes them out, willing herself to lose consciousness again so she can escape from her whirling thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up way different than I thought things would go, but it will not always be this hard. Comment your hopes for the future for Octavia. <3


	15. Chapter 15

A few hours later, Octavia finally has to interact with someone because she needs to use the bathroom. She looks up and sees she’s in a hospital room with a window. There’s a woman in scrubs sitting in a chair in the room and Raven is looking at her phone. Her eyes are red.

“Rae?”

She looks up.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“I can help you get there,” the woman in scrubs says. 

Octavia looks up hesitantly at the woman.

“I’m not sure if you heard me earlier when I introduced myself. I’m Cindy. I’m your one-to-one nursing assistant.”

Octavia’s not familiar with the term, but she’s pretty sure that means this woman has to stay with her all the time. And she finds out that exact thing when she helps her in the bathroom. It’s humiliating to have someone need to watch her 24/7. When the nursing assistant brings her back into the hospital room, Raven’s waiting expectantly. 

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Um, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?”

“I’m okay.”

Raven’s eyes get glassy.

“When Anya called me I was so scared I was never going to see you again.”

Octavia looks down. 

“I mean,  _ fuck,  _ O _.  _ I don’t know what I would do.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, I already do, so there’s no need.” Her voice is raw.

“No, I just need you to understand how important you are. How loved. How needed.”

“I get it, okay? I’m a horrible person for trying to off myself.”

“You’re not. I just… I’m sad you felt like you needed to.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Raven thinks for a moment. 

“Maybe. Probably. I get that things feel like too much right now. And that’s okay. I just have such a strong belief that things aren’t always going to feel this way. I think that someday you are going to be happy to be alive and you’ll be doing more than just trying to survive. And I get that that’s not where you’re at right now. But… I want you to hang on until you do feel that way.”

Octavia is silent for a long time.

“What ward am I in?”

“It’s a step-down unit from the ICU. If everything goes okay you’ll go to the psychiatric ward tomorrow or the next day.

Octavia’s lips quiver. She’s terrified of being in the restrictive and often unaccommodating psych ward. 

“Will you be able to visit?”

“Yep. I’ll come every day, I promise.”

“How long will I have to be there?”

“Till you’re feeling less actively suicidal and we feel like you’ll be safe at home.”

“Does Bellamy know?”

“Yeah. I called him a half-hour ago. He’s coming as soon as his shift is over.”

She nods. She looks down at her wrist, which is still in the brace holding it bent forward. 

“What’s this?”

“You injured a couple of the tendons and nerves in your wrist. That brace is keeping them held slack so they can heal. The doctor said you could have lost the function of your hand.”

“Oh.”

She lays back down and tunes things out again till Bellamy comes. He says her name and rushes over to her side. He takes in her brace and the long scratch marks still on her arm from the night before. 

He turns to Raven “How’s she doing?”

“She’ll be okay. I think everything’s pretty stable. They were able to counteract the meds she took. The worst thing is some tendon and nerve injury in her wrist.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” she says in a low voice. 

“Sorry,” Bellamy says, turning back to her. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Octavia starts crying. 

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“I’m not. I’m not glad I’m okay.”

Bellamy looks like he just got punched in the gut. 

“What started all this? Has this been going on for a long time?”

When Octavia doesn’t answer, Raven eventually says, “There were human remains found in Emerson’s yard. They’re pretty sure it’s another victim. O, is that what started this?”

“No. I’ve wanted to die ever since I was pregnant in Emerson’s basement,” she spits out through tears. Bellamy actually hadn’t known she had been pregnant. The conversation somehow hadn’t come up when he was around, so the comment has Octavia’s intended purpose of shocking Bellamy into silence. 

“It seems like getting the news from Lexa at least didn’t help things,” Raven says after a long time.

She laughs darkly. “Sure. Finding out my rapist and captor killed someone and buried her in his yard made me wanna die a little bit more.” She curls back in on herself and they don’t get her to say much more that night. She’s angry and sad and most of all, petrified at the idea of being alone in the psych ward, without her girlfriend or brother to help in ways that medical staff can’t. 

The next morning, the surgeon who had worked on her wrist comes to check on it. He takes off the dressing and Octavia is sickened by the look of the stitched wound. One more scar to add to the collection covering her body. The surgeon says he wants to keep her in the wrist brace for at least a month, otherwise she may have permanent damage to her hand function or sensation. Octavia rolls her eyes. She’s sick of restrictions on her body. She’s sick of doctors and hospitals and people pretending to understand what she’s been through when they don’t. She wants Anya there but doesn’t know how to ask. 

Her psychiatrist, Dr. Grove, comes to see her. She tells her that she’s not surprised this happened because it was amazing how anyone could live through what had been done to her. Octavia wonders if that’s supposed to make her feel better. Raven is outraged by the statement and demands a new psychiatrist for Octavia going forward. They end up with a younger doctor, Dr. Diyoza. While she’s a bit nontraditional and very to-the-point, Octavia likes her more than she had ever liked Dr. Grove and feels a lot less scared of going to the psych ward under this doctor’s care. But that doesn’t mean she  _ wants _ to go. When the orderly tells her he’s bringing her there, she promptly has a panic attack, but instead of just crying and hyperventilating, becomes aggressive and non-compliant. She scratches someone and kicks someone else before they sedate her. 

She wakes up in different clothes in a room with all white walls. She’s on a bed that’s permanently attached to the floor and wall and has a wipeable plastic mattress. The door, which has a small window, is closed. She would bet her ass it’s locked too. There’s a small window to the outside made of plexiglass with wire interwoven in it. She’s trapped again. A prisoner with no escape and no control over what will happen to her. She throws up. She’s not sure if it’s from whatever sedative they gave her or if it’s the déjà vu she’s getting. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door and she jumps. She hears the lock click and sees Dr. Diyoza standing in the doorway.

“Hi, Octavia. I’m sorry to have you wake up in a room by yourself. I figured it would be a lot better than putting restraints on you.”

“What about just having me in a normal room?”

“We can get there. I just need you to show us that you can be calm and interact safely with staff today. If that goes okay, I can get you into a regular room tomorrow. Okay?”

She nods.

“I… I don’t do well by myself.”

“We actually have a one-to-one assigned to you. She was watching from the security camera so she didn’t disturb your sleep, but she could sit by the door with it cracked if that would be better.”

Octavia nods quickly.

“Someone will come and clean this up and get you some breakfast soon, okay?”

She nods. The door closes again but doesn’t lock. 

A blonde woman sticks her head through the door a minute later.

“Hi, Octavia. I’m Clarke. I’m your one-to-one.”

She stares at her.

“Do you wanna talk? Not talk?”

“Uh. Talk.” She doesn’t want silence. That would bring back more memories of Emerson’s house.

“Okay. I also hear you’re getting some breakfast soon, so that’s fun. What do you like to do when you’re not in the hospital?”

Octavia realizes no one’s asked her this since she’s been back in society. She hasn’t thought about what she likes to do. 

“Uh, I guess I watch movies with my girlfriend.”

“Nice. I have a girlfriend too.”

Octavia is instantly a little more comfortable knowing this woman at least won’t be homophobic. Clarke carries the conversation easily, giving movie recommendations, talking about her love of drawing, and sharing that she had recently taken a trip to the Grand Canyon with her girlfriend where they had ridden mules. This sparks Octavia to remember how much she had liked riding horses before all this had happened. Lincoln had a few and they used to go riding often. She thinks when she gets out of the psych ward she’ll have to ask him if she can come and try getting on a horse again. She’ll probably need a lot of help, but that doesn’t matter. The day actually goes surprisingly quickly. Between meals, some music Clarke plays from her laptop, conversation, and visits with an occupational therapist and a counselor, before long, Clarke is saying it’s time for her to clock out.

“I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”

Octavia nods.

Then it’s visiting hours, and as promised, Raven comes. 

“Hi hon.”

“Hi.”

“This is a pretty awful room.”

She nods. “I get to be in a regular room tomorrow.”

“Good. Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah. I miss Anya.”

“She sent this along,” Raven says, handing Octavia a card. And Bellamy sent flowers. They said they can’t bring them in here but once you’re in a regular room, you can have them.”

“Okay.”

“How’s your new psychiatrist? Have you seen her today?”

She nods. “She seems better. Like she actually maybe has some empathy.”

“God, I wanted to wring Dr. Grove’s neck half the time she talked to us.”

Octavia smirks. 

“I’m looking forward to when you can come home.”

She nods. She doesn’t actually feel a lot less depressed, but she would certainly rather be at home than here. She takes her as-needed sleeping pill that night as well as the usual one, and thus can actually sleep through the night. 

The next day, she’s moved to a normal room with a roommate. It’s a middle-aged woman who’s been up for 5 days straight while manic. The woman talks constantly, and Octavia actually appreciates this because it helps her stay grounded in the present. They go to group therapy. They’re talking about some grounding skills that Octavia is already familiar with. Then Niylah comes and they meet in a small office on one end of the ward.

“How are you, Octavia?”

“Okay.”

“I’m very relieved that you’re okay. I was sad to hear that you had to come here.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“When we last talked, we made a crisis plan. It seems like it didn’t work out. Can you talk to me about why that is?”

“I didn’t want help or to be stopped.”

Niylah nods.

“Do you still feel that way?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to be here.”

“Do you think you’d be safe at home?”

“I don’t know.”

Niylah nods. 

“Sometimes a change of pace can help in situations like this. Are you interested in finding a different provider for counseling?”

“What? No. It’s taken so long for me to be comfortable talking about stuff with you. I don’t want to start over.”

“Okay. You don’t have to. I just thought I’d offer the idea.”

She nods. 

“It’s not your fault. I wasn’t really honest with you.”

“I forgive you. You’re not required to be honest with me, Octavia. You’re in control of how much you share. But I do want you to be safe and okay. And I think somewhere inside, under this pain, which is valid and deep, you want to be safe and okay too, even if you’re not sure exactly what that will look like.

She nods, tight-lipped to keep from crying. A part of her still wishes she had been able to carry out her plan to end her life. But another part of herself wants to be okay. Or at least,  _ wants  _ to want to be okay. 

That afternoon, Octavia reads the card from Anya. It’s long, written in tiny handwriting that covers both inside pages and the back of the card. Anya had written about why she was drawn to work with Octavia as her caregiver. She had been a medic in the army. She had seen a lot of shit when she had been deployed and finally left because her PTSD was making it so difficult to do her job. It had taken years of therapy before she was comfortable working with patients again. She said that obviously she couldn’t completely understand what Octavia had been through, but she thought that because she had gotten through the worst of her PTSD and now could function well as an adult, she wanted to help someone else experiencing something similar and be an empathetic caregiver who could respond in a helpful way when Octavia was experiencing PTSD symptoms. Octavia cries reading it. She misses Anya’s calm presence so much. 

Bellamy comes that evening to see her. He brings a few things from home she’s allowed to have: some of her own clothing (without drawstrings), some toiletries, and a few easy books. One of the things she still struggles with because of her head injury is reading comprehension, but she wants to get better at it, so she’s been trying to read at home at least a few pages a day.

“Raven said you seemed like you felt a little better last night. How are you doing today?”

“Okay. Not great, but… I think I’ll get there.”

“Good. I’m sorry I haven’t visited you much at home in the last few weeks. I’ve been… uh… seeing someone.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Echo. I’ve been wanting to introduce her to you. I just wasn’t sure about the timing. I know things have been a lot and didn’t want to overwhelm you.”

“I wanna meet her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, just maybe not when I’m in the psych ward.”

“Of course.”

“Does she know my history?”

“I’ve told her a little. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s probably better that way. Otherwise, it might be confusing why I can’t walk and have all these scars and have so much anxiety.”

“You’re more than just that. You know that, right?”

“I don’t know, am I? My nurse asked me what I liked to do for fun, and I couldn’t answer her. I feel like I’m a professional patient.”

He nods. 

“We should find some things for you to try again.”

“I miss riding with Lincoln.”

“Yeah? You should call him up. I bet he’d love to have you visit once you’re home again.”

“You don’t think he was too freaked out by how I was in the hospital?”

“No. He’s been trying to give you space because he knows your schedule’s pretty booked with your health. But I know if you asked, he’d want you to come.”

They chat for a while longer and then Bellamy goes home for the night. Things seem at least a little bit better, and he desperately hopes Octavia can cling onto that and work toward feeling even better in the future.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are there other hobbies or interests you think Octavia should try to explore once she goes home? What do you think of Diyoza as her psychiatrist? Thanks, everyone for your comments and for reading!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting. Work is crazy right now and my mental health has been taking me on some wild adventures.

Octavia is having a hard time sleeping after a ridiculously vivid nightmare. She refuses her sleeping pill and the nurse doesn’t press it since she isn’t freaking out. But she is exhausted from the lack of sleep and riding on a wave of anxiety that never seems to get smaller. They’ve been switching Octavia’s meds and the next day is when she really starts to feel it. She’s dizzy and nauseous and just wants to lay in bed. She’s also just exhausted from the hospital schedule . She’s used to spending half of her day resting, so the rigorous schedule is too much for her. Clarke works with Dr. Diyoza and is good about letting her rest, even when she’s technically supposed to be an activity. Her roommate had a crash from her mania and now is in bed, terribly depressed, so she doesn’t bother her either . 

Dr Diyoza checks in on her at 1pm. 

“Octavia, how’re you doing?”

“Any time I move my head, it feels like the world turns upside down.”

“Yeah, that’s a side effect of switching your antidepressant. Sometimes Benadryl can help with that, so I’ll put in an order for you in case you want it.”

“Cause you can’t be dizzy if you’re unconscious?”

Diyoza laughs. “Something like that. How’s your mental state?”

Octavia rubs her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m… kind of exhausted.”

“What about the suicidal ideation?”

Octavia looks down. “Still there.”

“Okay. Thanks for being honest with me.”

She nods. 

“How long does this new medication take to kick in?”

“Well, full efficacy is in 4 to 6 weeks.”

Octavia clutches the edge of the bed. 

“I’m not going to have to stay here that long, am I?”

“Not necessarily. I want your team, so you, Niylah, Raven, and me to feel confident that you’ll be able to be safe when we send you home. And we’ll probably do step-down approach where you’ll come here for day treatment for around 6 to 8 hours a day and go home in the evenings. And then partial-day, then just seeing your counselor and attending a group once a week. ”

Octavia is overwhelmed. She had thought she’d be home in a few days. Now it sounds like it could be weeks.

After the appointment with Diyoza, Clarke notices Octavia digging her fingernails into her arms as she’s laying in bed.

“Hey Octavia, can I get you something to fidget with so you can be safe?”

She looks up and lets go of her arm, flexing her fingers.

“Uh, sure.”

Clarke messages the occupational therapist and Octavia soon has a squishy stress ball. 

”So what were you thinking about?”

“Huh?”

Before, when you were scratching yourself? You don’t have to tell me, I’m just curious.”

“Um… that I might have to be here for weeks.”

“Yeah?”

“Dr Diyoza said I have to be here till they think I’ll be safe at home. I tried to off myself 4 days ago. Niylah is trying to help me, but it’s hard when I don’t really have many things to look forward to or be happy about. All I have is trauma to look back at and years of therapy ahead of me.”

“What did you want to do before all this?”

“Before Emerson?”

Clarke nods.

“I went to school for anthropology and linguistics. I was hoping to be an interpreter or cultural liaison.”

“Could you see yourself doing that still?”

She shakes her head.

“The brain injury… I forget it’s there sometimes, but it makes some things really hard. I have a hard time reading and my executive function is shit. Without Raven and Anya I wouldn’t remember to eat or take my meds or dress right for the weather. Not to mention how emotional I am. My neurologist thinks it’s at least partially from my brain injury. I never used to cry in front of people. Now it’s like my emotions are so close to the surface, they bubble up without me realizing.”

Clarke nods. 

“And my anxiety and PTSD obviously don’t help things.”

“For sure. Is there anything you could see yourself doing now?”

She looks out the window.

“I don’t know. I think that’s part of what made me…”

“You know, being able to work doesn’t give someone worth.”

“No, but it feels hard when my life doesn’t seem to have a purpose.”

“I get that.”

“Sorry, I know you’re trying to help.”

“Octavia, you don’t have to apologize for feeling hopeless. I don’t think that it’s your fault. You didn’t cause this.”

Octavia’s lips quiver as she presses them together.

“It feels like everyone’s fighting so hard for me and I’m just being a shitty person and letting everyone down by not doing everything I can to feel better.”

“I don’t think you’re a shitty person. I think that life has been really hard and it makes a lot of sense that you feel the way you do. You don’t have to force yourself to look on the bright side or will yourself to not be depressed. I heard someone say once that you don’t have to look forward to your future, being a little bit curious about what could be is enough. But if even that feels like too much, maybe just hang in there till you can feel that, huh?”

She nods, digging her nails into her arm subconsciously. Clarke picks up the stress ball and hands it to her.

“You good? Do you wanna take something?”

Octavia takes the ball and squeezes it. “I’ll be okay.”

  
  


Anya visits her at the middle of her second week in the hospital. 

“Hey.”

“Hi.” 

“I miss you.”

“Miss you too. I’ve been doing some subbing for other patients and it’s not the same. How are you doing?”

She grimaces.

“Do you still feel as bad as when you came?”

“I don’t know. A little better, I think. I’m really tired, though.”

Anya nods. “Hospital schedules are exhausting.”

“I… I’m sorry you had to...find me like that.”

“I was really worried.”

Octavia nods, looking down.

“I just want you to be okay. I know things have been hard and I’m sorry it got so bad without us noticing.”

Octavia nods, not sure what to say.

“How’s your wrist?”

“It itches. And hurts.”

“I’m sorry. Are the staff treating you okay?”

“Yeah. I have a really good day one to one, so that’s helpful.”

“Good. Who is it?”

“Her name’s Clarke.”

“No way. Clarke Griffin?”

“I think so.”

“You know she’s dating the DA?”

“Lexa?”

“Yeah. AND, remember your doctor, Abby Griffin?”

She nods.

“That’s her mom.”

“Oh.”

“They probably don’t even all know that they’ve seen you due to patient and client privacy laws. But Clarke and I were both working in the same ward for a while. How’s your night one-to-one?”

“Good. She pretty much leaves me alone unless I’m screaming or directly asking her for something. She’s not chatty, which is good because I’m pretty much always sleeping when she’s here.”

“Well, good.”

“I wanna come home.”

“I want that too. And I know Raven does too. We just want you to be able to be safe when you do.”

Octavia looks down. 

  
  
  


Octavia’s least favorite part of her psych ward stay besides just wanting to be home is art therapy. She hates having to talk about her feelings at all, but art therapy is a new level of painful for her. She’s not a creative person, so she ends up making word art from magazine clippings (cut with safety scissors, of course) that says “I went to the psych ward and all I got was this dumb word art.” 

She notices a skinny teenager who won’t stop staring at her during art therapy, and near the end finally decides to confront her.

“What’s your problem?”

“Um, nothing, sorry.”

“No really. Just tell me.”

“I just… wondered how you got so skinny.” 

Octavia looks down at the girl’s collage of smiling women, scales, and pictures of food on her paper.

“It’s this really fun new diet where you get kidnapped and held against your will and tortured for four years.”

The girl looks taken aback.

“You should try it. It’s a blast. The weight just falls off when you’re only given one meal a day.”

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Whatever.”

The girl goes away, and Octavia feels a little guilty. She knows mental illness can make you irrational and unhealthy, but she also feels good for telling the girl off. No one should idolize this. She looks down at herself; at her exposed right wrist with its ugly scarring where she had fought violently against the cuffs that held her to the bed. She looks at her stomach, which is nearly always bloated now from everyone trying to get her to eat more. The GI doctor had diagnosed it as delayed gastric emptying. She still gets intense stomach aches after she eats, but fortunately, she doesn’t throw up as often after she eats like she did in the hospital. It feels like her body has Emerson’s name tattooed all over it; on every scar, every angular bone, every malfunctioning part. Her body still feels like it belongs to him. He used to make her say that. It was one of the few things he was okay with her saying. When he was high off her pain, he’d ask her who she belonged to and hurt her till she told him she belonged to him. She suddenly notices Clarke kneeling in front of her, trying to talk to her, and realizes she’s hyperventilating

“Octavia, try and focus on your body in the chair, alright?”

She looks up into Clarke’s eyes.

“Hey, you with me?”

She nods.

“Do you wanna take something?”

She nods again.

“Ativan?”

She shakes her head.  _ Not strong enough. _

“Valium?”

She nods and things blur and she’s in her room and Clarke has a pill and a glass of water.

“Do you think you can take this for me?”

She takes the pill and puts it in her mouth and tries to take a sip of water, but chokes on a sob and ends up spitting water down her front.

“Alright, I’m going to get some intramuscular. Hang tight.”

She doesn’t flinch when suddenly there’s a needle in her arm and she’s pretty sure it’s because she’s going catatonic. It only takes a few moments before her eyelids are getting heavy.

  
  


She wakes up nauseous, as expected. She’s infinitely proud of herself when she manages to call out for a barf bucket while her eyes are still closed so when she opens her eyes and her stomach turns, she for once doesn’t make a mess. 

They have a phone conference with Raven, Bellamy, Niylah, and Diyoza. Octavia’s worried her panic attack will further delay her going home, but Dr Diyoza says it won’t. She says she’s seriously considering discharging her by the weekend. 

Her wrist is healing but the doctor still wants her in her brace for the next 2 and a half weeks. The scar is going to be thick with the stitch lines visible. She feels dumb for adding another scar to the others but she had never intended on living with it. 

In another few days Dr Diyoza tells her she’s moving her to day treatment. Octavia is relieved. When she arrives home the next day she notices the knife block is missing from the counter. There’s no longer a razor in the shower and her meds aren’t in the drawer of her bedside table anymore. Instead, they’re in a lockbox in the kitchen. It feels weird and uncomfortable. Like Raven is her warden. She’s pretty sure she’s going to have a panic attack and now she can’t dose her own meds when she needs them. 

“Rae, I need an Ativan.”

“Oh, yup okay.” Raven unlocks the box with a key from her keychain and pulls out an Ativan for her. Octavia puts it under her tongue and waits for it to dissolve.

“Do you wanna talk about what’s going on?”

“Things are different.”

“Yeah, they are.”

“I feel like you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not. I’m… worried. I just don’t want that to ever happen again.”

“I… I feel like you’re my supervisor, not my girlfriend.”

Raven furrows her eyebrows. 

“That’s not my intention. I love you. I want to treat you with dignity and respect. But sometimes you’re not that great at knowing what you need or communicating it. And sometimes you really scare me. So I feel like I have to take over.”

Octavia nods, feeling an ache in her chest.

“You know how much I love you, right?”

Octavia nods and musters up the courage to ask for something she’s been wanting to try.

“Can we cuddle? I want to be close to you.”

Raven nods and wheels her to the living room, then lifts her onto the couch.

“You know, you’ve really increased my ab and arm tone since you’ve been home.”

Octavia half-smiles. “I try.”

Raven sits down next to her. Octavia snakes a leg over Raven’s and leans so her head rests against her chest. The Ativan is kicking in and wrestling her anxiety. Raven wraps an arm around her and leans down to kiss her temple.

“Is this okay?” They haven’t done this since Octavia’s had been found and Raven can feel Octavia’s heart beating fast. 

“Yeah.” Octavia turns her head so her face is next to Raven’s chest. She breathes in the scent of the bar soap Raven has used ever since they met mingled with some chemical she uses at work. It’s not unpleasant and it’s totally Raven. 

“Are you feeling okay about day treatment?”

“I don’t wanna talk about my mental or physical health right now. I just want to be with you.”

“Okay.”

They turn on American Ninja Warrior and exclaim over the badass women who compete in it. Octavia dozes on Raven’s chest and things feel almost normal for a little bit. It’s not the hiking and activism that they used to do together, but it’s more than they’ve been able to have together for a long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, please don’t think that scene with the girl in art therapy is me hating on people with eating disorders. EDs are terrible and can really take you over. You can idolize some completely toxic and scary shit when you’re dealing with an ED.
> 
> I’m posting this late at night so if there’s errors, that’s why.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, two points: 
> 
> 1\. There are some near-sexy times from the asterisks till the end of the chapter.  
> 2\. In the US, "pants" means trousers. Just felt the need to clarify this point.

The police end up finding the remains of 1 adolescent female, a full-term baby and 3 pre-mature infants in Emerson’s yard. They DNA test them all. The girl’s name was Roma. She had been taken in 2012, 2 years before Harper was taken. It appears she had been murdered sometime before Harper arrived. Her family is devastated, though they hadn’t had a lot of remaining hope that she was alive. The infant and one of the fetuses belonged to Harper, one was Octavia’s, and one was Roma’s. Raven sits Octavia down to tell her about it after Luna calls her. Octavia’s new meds have made her numb so she doesn’t really react when Raven tells her. But then she tells her that the police have given Octavia the task of deciding what to do with her miscarried child. Being pregnant and then beaten till she miscarried had been one of the most traumatic parts of her captivity. She doesn’t want to make this decision. 

“Can’t someone else decide? Can’t the police get rid of it?”. 

“Hon, this really is your choice. We could cremate the remains and spread the ashes somewhere or we could bury it.”

Octavia rubs at the tension headache in her forehead.

“Bury it then. I don’t want to be there.”

“Okay. I’ll call the detective and let him know.”

“Do you think I’m a horrible person?”

“No, I don’t. It was a pregnancy you didn’t want and didn’t have any control over. I wouldn’t expect you to feel attached to the fetus… er…. baby?”

“I don’t know what to call it either.” Raven notices her digging her fingernails into her neck and grabs her stress ball, holding it out wordlessly. Octavia sheepishly pulls her fingers away from her skin and takes the stress ball. 

  
  


They go and pick up the puppy the next weekend. Octavia names him Hyperion after the Greek titan of light. He’s fairly potty trained, just has the occasional accident. They have him sleep in a crate in the guest room, even though Octavia would rather him sleep in bed with her. The service dog trainer they’re working with had told them this was important at first. They start teaching him basic commands right away and he picks them up quickly, eager to please. His whole body seems to wag when they call him a good boy. Anya isn’t really an animal person, but even she admits that Hyperion is pretty cute. When she and Octavia go on their walks, they take him with. 

Octavia goes to full day treatment for a few days, but she’s so tired she keeps accidentally falling asleep during group sessions. She’s sleeping fine at night, it just doesn’t seem to be enough. The team has a meeting and they decide to move her to half days because she’s clearly exhausted. Octavia naps at home. They have an open door policy now, which Octavia hates but understands. She feels uncomfortable knowing Raven and Anya are keeping their eyes on her.

  
  


They try standing again the next week at PT. Octavia makes sure to drink gatorade before the session but after 15 seconds of standing, she passes out again. Indra says she’s not comfortable working on it again until Octavia gets this figured out so she makes an appointment with a cardiologist who had seen her in the hospital. The cardiologist has her try standing in her office and watches her vitals as she gets dizzy and blacks out. Her heart rate goes from 70 bpm to mid 160s, and her blood pressure goes from 100/65 to 70/43. The cardiologist diagnoses her with something called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS. She says it can happen in people who have been deconditioned, so it makes sense that Octavia developed it after not having stood or walked in several years. Basically, Octavia’s autonomic nervous system is dysfunctional and doesn’t maintain her blood pressure when she stands up. Instead of the blood pumping around her body, it pools in her feet, which causes much less blood to go to her brain. Her body tries to compensate by increasing her heart rate, but it doesn’t work well enough, her brain doesn’t get enough blood, and her body passes out as a reflex to get her to lay down so the blood can get back to her head. The doctor puts her on a medication to increase her blood pressure and tells her she wants her eating 6 g of salt today and drinking 3 liters of water or electrolyte fluids. They set up a follow up appointment for a few months out and the doctor tells her to keep her updated. She also gives her some leg exercises to do and prescribes some compression stockings which make Octavia feel like an old lady. On the way home from the appointment, Octavia is quiet.

“How are you feeling about all this,” Anya asks.

She shrugs. “It’s one more thing.”

“It is. There are a lot of things.”

She nods. “And I didn’t get an expiration date on this. It sounds like this is something I ‘manage,’ not “get better from.”

Anya nods.

“I’m fucking tired.”

“I know.”

Anya keeps an especially keen eye on her that day when she naps, worried ‘fucking tired’ is code for ‘suicidal.’ It’s not, though Octavia’s mind still often brings up the proposition of offing herself. It doesn’t sound like the worst idea, and her brain seems to throw it at her any time she’s overwhelmed or exhausted, but she’s getting a little better at telling it that now’s not the time.

.

  
  


Even though standing can’t really be a thing yet, Octavia is getting stronger with her arms and starting to self-propel in her wheelchair. It’s the most freedom of movement she’s had in years and it feels great. She still needs help transferring from her chair to another seat, but she’s working on that too.

  
  


Christmas is suddenly upon them. Raven gets Octavia some cute service dog gear for Hyperion and some cute compression socks that don’t make her feel so frumpy. Octavia gets Raven some tools she knows she’s been eyeing. Bellamy has to work on Christmas but he comes the next day and they exchange some more gifts.

“How are you doing, O? Sorry I haven’t been here as much. It’s been pretty busy at work.”

“It’s alright. I’m okay.”

“How’s the depression?”

“I’m managing.”

“Good. Have you gotten a chance to talk to Lincoln? I know you said you wanted to maybe try riding again.”

“I haven’t talked with him. I’ve been so busy and I don’t really have a phone. I use my iPad to message people sometimes but Lincoln and I always texted back in the day.”

“Do you want a phone?”

She thinks for a second. “Maybe. I guess I’m not sure when I’d use one, since I’m always with Raven or Anya.”

“How long do you think it’ll be like that?”

“I don’t know. First it was my anxiety, making it too stressful to be alone. Now they don’t trust me.”

“I mean, fair.”

“Yeah, but I’m hoping that won’t last forever.”

“For sure. Do you want me to text Lincoln?”

“Sure.”

“What messaging app are you using? I can give him your contact info.”

“I’m using Discord.” She tells him her ID number and he texts it to Lincoln. Two hours later, Octavia gets a message from him.

**Lincoln: Hey, I was happy to get Bellamy’s text. I’ve been wondering how you’ve been! Bell said you might be interested in riding. I still have both Helios and Selene. I remember how well you and Helios worked as a team. I’m private contracting right now, so my hours are flexible. Just let me know when you want to come over and I can most likely make time.**

She smiles. 

**Octavia: Hey, I’ve been okay. It’s a long road and it’s pretty bumpy but I’m trying. Yeah I’d love to come ride. I’m still not great at standing and bearing all my weight on my feet or on my arms yet though so I’ll either need major help or need to wait till my body sorts itself out.**

**Lincoln: I’d be happy to help get you back in the saddle. I still deadlift probably over 3x what you weigh so it shouldn’t be a problem.**

**Octavia: that’d be more impressive if I wasn’t a skeleton.**

**Lincoln: I know. You’ll get there.**

**Octavia: the next few weeks are pretty busy but after that I think it’ll slow down some, so maybe then.**

**Lincoln: great, just let me know.**

  
  
  


*****

Octavia and Raven have taken to snuggling every night when Raven comes home. One evening, Octavia starts kissing Raven’s neck. Raven smiles. Octavia has been craving physical closeness and this feels right. Raven turns so she can kiss Octavia on the lips. Octavia shuts her eyes and leans into it. After a few minutes, Octavia starts playing with the hem of Raven’s shirt. She looks up into Raven’s eyes and raises an eyebrow. Raven nods. Octavia lifts up her shirt and Raven lifts her arms so she can pull the shirt off. Octavia has seen her girlfriend’s body briefly since she came home from the hospital, when she’s changing. But she hasn’t really  _ seen  _ it since before she was abducted. She studies the slope of her chest and puts her hand on her ribs to feel her breath while she kisses her neck. 

“I wanna go down on you.”

Raven looks at her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, if you want,” she says quickly.

“Okay.”

Octavia reaches down to unbutton Raven’s pants and pull down the zipper. Raven shifts to shimmy the pants off. She tries to look into Octavia’s eyes to make sure she’s okay, but Octavia doesn’t look at her, still taking in Raven’s body.

“You good, O?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?” 

“Yeah. I just… want this.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

Octavia nods and plants kisses down her stomach, sliding a hand around her thigh. It feels good and Raven weaves her fingers in Octavia’s hair as she kisses the curve of her hip. She hears her let out a shaky breath. It doesn’t sound excited, it sounds anxious. Something doesn’t seem right. 

“O, look at me.”

She won’t at first.

“O?”

When she finally looks up, to Raven’s horror, Octavia has tears in her eyes. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” Octavia tried to kiss her again, but Raven holds her back, feeling a sickening pang in her stomach. 

“Octavia, you’re crying.”

“Please, I want this,” Octavia says, voice tight. 

“No. I’m not comfortable with this.”

Octavia bursts into further tears.

Raven gets up and pulls her shirt and pants back on, then sits down again. Octavia is sobbing, curled in a ball. 

“Honey, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry.”

“O, I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“I’m sorry, of course you don’t want this.”

“Yeah, cause you’re  _ crying. _ ”

Octavia covers her face with her hands, fingernails digging into her forehead and temples.

“ _ Hey _ , talk to me.”

“I just want to be close to you. I don’t want to lose you. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I thought you’d want this.”

“Want what?”

“M-me.”

“Shit.” Raven sits back, taking in the situation. “Honey, of course I want you. But I don’t want to have sex with you when you’re upset. When it seems like maybe you don’t actually want to do it. That’s not consent. That’s not okay with me. You’re not going to lose me, but you have to start respecting your own emotions. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Can you imagine how horrible I’d feel if we had sex and you actually didn’t want to? I want to do it only if you want to do it.”

“But I  _ did  _ want it.”

“But part of you was saying no. You have to respect that part. I  _ really  _ have to respect that part.”

“I don’t want the rest of my life to be determined by my trauma.”

“I get that. Maybe we’ll have sex sometime. Maybe we won’t. But if we do, you have to be all in. I don’t want to be scared I’m going to rape you because you won’t tell me you’re not okay. Does that… make sense?”

“I’m not stupid.

“No, you’re not. I’m just doing a shitty job trying to explain this and I’m not sure if I’m making any sense.”

She nods. 

“I need you to believe me when I say that I’d rather never have sex with you than have it when you don’t want it. But you’re not going to lose me. I need you to understand that.”

“Okay.”

They’re silent for a beat. 

“Do you know why you were crying?”

She looks down. 

“It… he….” she sighs in frustration, rubbing her forehead. “You were playing with my hair. When I was kissing you. He used to grab my hair when he’d make me… you know. And it’s like my body just went back there.”

“Okay. Sorry that I brought you back there.”

“It’s not your fault. The wind could bring me back there. My brain is a total bastard with way too much fodder for flashbacks. Can we… I just want to be close to you.”

“I wanna snuggle you, but I want to make sure you’re really okay with that.”

“I am. I promise,” she says, looking into Raven’s eyes. 

“Okay.”

She moves so an arm is around Octavia, gently, not too restricting, and snakes a leg around hers. Octavia puts her head on Raven's shoulder and wraps an arm around the front of Raven’s torso. Raven reaches to squeeze her arm. 

“I love you, O.”

“Love you too.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



	18. Chapter 18

Octavia messages Lincoln a week and a half later. 

**Octavia: Hey, would you have time for me to come over and ride Helios sometime soon?**

**Lincoln: yeah! When do you want to come?**

**Octavia: maybe this weekend? Raven really wants to come too. She was super excited that I’m going to try riding again and wanted to come watch.**

**Lincoln: for sure. She can ride Selene if she wants too.**

**Octavia: I’ll let her know.**

  
  
  
  


Raven drives them over on Saturday. Octavia is excited but a little nervous. 

Lincoln beams when she wheels herself into the large pole barn. He’s already tacked the horses and they’re hitched in some of the stalls down a corridor on one side of the building. 

“Look at you. You look great.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“You’re wheeling yourself and you look healthier. More alive. It’s really good to see you.”

“Good to see you too.”

He leads them to the horses. When she sees Helios, she gets tears in her eyes. He bends his face down to her and she rubs his soft nose. 

“Hi buddy. I’ve missed you.”

When he hears her voice, Helios nudges his head against her chest, staring intently at her. she reaches up and scratches behind his ears and rubs his neck. 

“I think he’s missed you too.”

Lincoln leads Helios out to the corral and hitches him to a post before turning to her. She had brought her helmet on a backpack hanging on the back of her chair and she twists around to pull it out and put it on. 

“You ready, O?”

She nods, smiling nervously. She wheels up to Helios’s side, talking to him so he isn’t freaked out by her wheelchair.

“Alright.” Lincoln bends down as Octavia scoots forward. She wraps a hand around his neck while he puts an arm around her back and under her knees. He lifts her and turns toward Helios. She grabs the horn of the saddle and he lifts her as she throws a leg over Helios. 

“How’s it feel?”

“Good.”

She reaches down to adjust the stirrup under her right foot as he does the left and when she straightens quickly, black dots overtake her vision. 

“Woah,” Lincoln reaches up quickly to steady her when she sways backward. She grabs onto the saddle horn again and blinks and takes a few deep breaths, then nods.

“I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yup. Just moved a little too quickly.”

“Alright. Do you want me to lead him or do you want the reins?”

She holds out her hand and he grins and hands them to her. 

“Just let me know if you don’t feel good, okay?”

She nods. 

Octavia clicks her tongue and squeezes her legs and Helios walks forward. She rubs his neck as he walks around the corral, smiling blissfully. She loves feeling his gentle sway as he moves and hearing the leather of the saddle squeak softly. She knows she’s not strong enough to trot or canter but doesn’t mind much, enjoying the smells, sights and sensations of riding. Niylah has talked with her about mindfulness dozens of times and this is one of the most mindful experiences she thinks she’s had. She feels totally focused on the moment, not worrying about what has been or what will be. 

Raven is grinning at her as she makes her way back around to her.

“How’s it feel, love?”

“Great.”

She walks Helios around the corral many times before finally stopping him by Lincoln and Raven. 

“Are you tiring out, hon?”

She nods, still smiling.

“Linc, thank you for this. It was so, so good.”

“Of course. Any time.”

  
  


Octavia falls asleep on the drive home but it has been a wonderful afternoon.

  
  


Lexa calls a few days later to let them know that a date has been set for Emerson’s trial in about 3 months. Octavia’s anxiety ramps up with the news. She’s still working on recognizing her tendency to scratch herself when she’s anxious. She usually doesn’t notice until she has marks or someone alerts her to it. It’s a task they want to train Hyperion to do. He already naturally alerts her when her heart rate gets too high, either from her postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or from anxiety. 

“Hon, you need an Ativan?” 

Octavia blinks and looks up, realizing she’s been staring into the distance for a long time.

Raven gently pulls her hand away from scratching her arm to hold it.

“Uh, I think I’m okay.”

“Alright.”

Octavia subconsciously reaches her other hand to dig her nails into her thigh before noticing what she’s doing and bringing it up to Raven’s hands. 

“Can we go for a walk?”

“Sure.”

The temp is in the 40’s and the sky is grey but it’s good to get outside. Octavia can mostly propel herself, but still needs help on hills. The fresh air and change of scenery calm Octavia and halfway through the walk she’s ready to talk.

“Do you think I’m gonna have to see him again?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know if I can give a testimony with him there.”

Raven nods. 

“Hopefully you won’t have to. You should talk with Lexa about your concerns. You know she’ll do everything she can to help.””

“Yeah, I will.”

  
  


Raven has been burning the candle at both ends for months. Everyone knows this but it finally catches up with her midway through January. she catches a cold at work but doesn’t slow down at all. She gives it to Octavia, who is pretty miserable for a few days and then gets mostly better and just has a stuffy nose and lower energy. In Raven’s case, the sickness goes to her lungs. Five days in, she has a horrendous cough that makes her sleep in the guest toom to try to let Octavia sleep better. Anya arrives on Monday morning and looks with concern at Raven.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” she says, voice hyponasal and raspy. She breaks into a coughing fit. 

Anya raises an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t work near other people. I won’t get anyone sick.”

“I’m more worried about you needing some rest.”

“I tried to nap this weekend.”

“I can’t make you do anything, but if I could, I’d make you stay home.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Midway through the week she’s barely slept because she’s been up coughing and she’s somewhat worried she’s going to choke when she gets into her deep, hacking coughing fits. Octavia watches her brace herself on the table while she goes into a coughing fit for several minutes one evening. 

“Rae, you should call in sick tomorrow and go to the doctor.”

“It’s no big deal. I’m fine.”

Octavia pulls her down to her level so she can feel Raven’s forehead. 

“You have a fever. Anya says it sounds like you might have pneumonia.”

She sighs.

“Raven, you need to take care of yourself. If not for you, then for me.”

She scowls but eventually nods. 

“Alright.”

“Good.”

  
  


It is indeed pneumonia. She has a fever of 101 degrees and somewhat significant inflammation in her lungs that shows up on her x-ray. The doctor puts her on a steroid, an antibiotic and cough syrup with codeine. When she admits she hasn’t taken a day off from work at all since Octavia’s been back, he insists that she take at least 3 days off, going so far as to say he’s willing to admit her for a night for observation at the hospital if it means she’ll actually rest. She declines, but promises that she’ll take some time off. 

She gets her medications from the pharmacy and goes home to crash. Octavia is still at therapy with Anya so Raven crawls into the bed in the guest room and falls asleep. She’s not sure what time it is when she wakes up with a cool cloth on her forehead. Anya is looking down at her in concern. 

“What’d the doctor say?”

“Pneumonia,” she croaks.

“Alright. Did you get meds?”

“In my bag.”

Anya rustles around in her purse on the floor and gets the meds before handing her 4 pills and a glass of water. Raven takes the pills wordlessly, then takes the medicine dropper of cough medicine she hands her. ”What time is it?”

“3:30.”

She suddenly feels teary.

“You should go home. I should be taking care of O.”

“Bellamy’s here. O called him. She’s fine.”

“Then I should be at work.”

“Raven, it’s okay to take time for yourself. You have to. You’ve been working so hard. You need to rest.”

She cries for a little bit and Anya smooths her hair back from her sweaty forehead. She’s so exhausted that she eventually falls back asleep. When she wakes up, Octavia is carefully wheeling into the room with a bowl of soup balanced on top of a hot pad on her lap.

“Hey. Brought you something to eat.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

She nods. 

“You need to rest up, okay?”

“Okay.”

Octavia hands her the bowl of soup and Raven sits up a bit, coughing for a long time after the position change. She eats the soup, not missing that this is the first time their roles of caregiver and patient has been reversed.

“How is it?”

“Good. Thank you.”

“The best a carton can offer.”

“It still means a lot.”

“Alright now, don’t get sappy on me. You should rest more.”

I’ve been sleeping half the day.”

“You need it with how much you’ve been up coughing.”

“Have I been keeping you up?”

“No. I’ve just heard you a couple of times. Let us know if you need anything, okay?”

She nods and Octavia takes the dishes out on her lap. 

  
  
  
  


“I’m glad you called me,” Bellamy says when Octavia emerges from the bedroom. “She sounds like death even from out here.”

“I know. I hate that I’m causing this.”

“You’re not.”

She gives him a look. 

“Bell, I’m the reason she’s not caring for herself.”

“Octavia, no offense, but you didn’t see her when you were gone. Especially when we found out the police were stopping actively looking for you. She got really depressed; would barely get out of bed. Monty and Gina practically had to take care of her for a couple of months.

“I didn’t know.”

“No one was better off without you. I started making careless decisions at the station. Almost got put on leave cause the chief was worried I was gonna get someone killed.”

She grabs her big brother’s hand.

“We’re really happy you’re back, O. Raven’s trouble taking care of herself is not your fault. It’s something she has to work on for herself.”

She nods, not entirely convinced. 

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

“Like where?”

“Out for ice cream?”

“What about Rae?”

“She’ll be alright here.”

“You know what I really want?”

“What?”

“Hard liquor.”

He smirks. “You can’t, can you?”

She shakes her head. “Fucking medication.”

He nods.

“It’s not fair. Like, if anyone needs alcohol it’s me.”

“It’s true, but it’s also maybe good that you can’t. With how mom handled every addictive substance under the sun.”

She nods.

“So… ice cream?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

They go to a shop she and Raven used to frequent. She gets a hot fudge sundae and he gets a cone with dark chocolate and coconut scoops.

She notices a woman gaping at her from another table.

“I think I’ve got a fan.”

“What?”

“Some lady’s staring at me. Probably recognizes me from the news.”

Bellamy looks around and sees the lady. 

“I think I’ll show her the trick me and my OT worked on a couple months ago,” she says, flipping the lady off. 

Bellamy grins and the woman looks appalled and finally looks away.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Sometimes I forget that more than just the people I know have heard about what happened to me. I wonder how Zoe’s taking it. And Harper.”

“You should ask Zoe. It seems like you two are good for each other.”

“We haven’t talked since she left the hospital.”

“Now you two could text or video chat.”

“That’s true. Maybe I’ll ask Rae for her info.”

  
  


They go back home and Bellamy makes sure Octavia has her meds and helps her transfer from her chair to the toilet and back, then into bed.

“You know, I’m almost strong enough to do transfers myself.”

“That’s awesome.”

“I just wish the fainting would work itself out. I try standing a couple times a week with Anya here at home and sometimes I can sit down before I pass out, but other times it just hits too fast.”

“You’ll get there.”

“I hope so.”

“I’m really proud of you. You know that?”

She smiles and rolls her eyes.

“What?”

“That’s the kind of thing you said to me like every day when mom died. I mean, I know you meant well, but it was a lot.”

“Hey, I was trying to parent a bratty teenager by myself when I had just turned 20. Give me a break.”

She grins “it’s like you wanted to try to make up for my entire childhood in the 3 years I had left before I became an adult.”

“How’d I do?”

She shrugs. “Not bad besides the cooking.”

“Look, it’s not my fault no one taught me to cook.”

“Yeah, but you couldn’t even follow basic instructions. I distinctly remember you ruining boxed Mac and cheese. How did you even do that?”

“I kept you fed, didn’t I?”

“I mean, if you can call what you made ‘food.’”

Bellamy laughs and makes sure she has everything she needs before making his way out to the couch to sleep. It feels so good to joke and laugh with Octavia like they used to. A lot has changed, but he’s glad they can still connect with each other. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What are you curious about as Octavia continues her recovery and the trial comes closer?
> 
> I also have an idea for another Octaven fic I’m hoping to write and wondering if anyone out there might be down for a collab? Preferably someone with a fairly good sense for grammar and spelling as well as maybe already having some fics on Ao3 so I can see your writing style? Let me know


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience during my delay getting this out. Work has been completely overwhelming lately so I haven’t had much time to write.

Octavia gets up the next morning and texts Bellamy to see if he’s up. He is, and he comes in to help her get to her wheelchair so she can go about her day. They can hear Raven coughing from the guest bedroom. Octavia wheels over and knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Raven calls, voice hoarse.

“Hi Hon,” Octavia says. She really hasn’t used pet names with Raven since she’s been home, but it feels good.

“Hi.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Okay.” She coughs for a minute and spits into a tissue. Hyperion is a warm lump snuggled into her side.

“Can I make you some coffee?”

“I mean, I could get up and do it.”

“You should rest. I want to do this.”

Raven looks into her eyes. “Okay.”

Octavia goes to the kitchen. She can’t drink coffee because it makes her even more anxious than she already is, but before all this she used to enjoy several cups a day. She needs a little help getting the water into the vestibule because it’s so high up and she still can’t stand, but other than that, she makes the coffee herself. She also microwaves a packet of apple cinnamon oatmeal for Raven. When it and the coffee are ready, she tries to put them in her lap to bring over to Raven, but she ends up spilling some of the hot coffee on her thighs.

“Ooh, ouch,” she hisses. Bellamy is over in record time.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just spilled some coffee.”

“Okay,” he says, letting out a breath. 

“Would you help me bring this over to Raven?”

“Sure.”

They bring the things to Raven.

“Thank you guys.”

“It was all Octavia. I just helped carry it over.”

“And pour the water,” Octavia reminds him.

“Thanks O,” Raven says. Her breath catches on a cough and she coughs for several long moments.

“Of course.”

Raven slowly gets better with lots of rest. Between Bellamy, Anya, and Octavia, they make sure she doesn’t have to get up for anything. Anya slips into the guest bedroom to talk with Raven two afternoons later while Octavia is taking a nap.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?”

“I think I’m starting to feel better. Those steroids really help.”

Anya nods.

“I’m glad. You know, I know I don’t have any right to speak into your life, but I feel like no one else is going to do it. You have to make your well-being a priority.”

She looks down. “I know.”

“O will be okay. You’ve gotta make sure you will be, too.”

She nods.

“I know it’s not my business, and you don’t have to answer me, but have you been seeing your therapist?”

“No. You know I consider you a friend, Anya. You can call me out on my bullshit.”

“You should go back to her. Or find a new one if you don’t like her. All this is a lot to handle for anyone. You’ve gotta have someone to talk to about it. ”

“I know. You’re right.”

“And you need to get out to do more than grocery shop. See some friends or go on a hike. Something.”

She nods.

“You’re worth taking care of.”

“Okay.”

  
  
  
  


Lexa and Octavia have to start meeting to discuss the trial. Octavia shares her concerns about giving a testimony in front of Emerson, and Lexa says she’ll do what she can to find a work-around. 

Raven goes to therapy again for the first time in 4 months a couple weeks after the worst of her pneumonia is over. 

“It’s good to see you,” says Luna. 

“Yeah, sorry it’s been a while.”

“It’s alright. I’ve just been hoping you’re well.”

She nods. “It’s been a lot.”

“Is Octavia home?”

“Yeah. She had to be back in the hospital for a couple weeks because of a suicide attempt. But she’s home and doing a lot better.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that happened.”

“It was terrifying.”

“I would imagine.”

The worst part was leaving her at the hospital. She was freaking out and fighting and they sedated her and took her away. And then I had to come home to clean up. She had cut herself. There was blood everywhere.”

“What were you feeling in that moment?”

“I was worried she was going to keep struggling like that forever. That things were never going to be okay. That I’d be dealing with crisis after crisis for the rest of my life.”

Luna nods. “I would imagine Octavia had similar concerns.”

She nods. 

“Things have been better, though. We’ve been connecting more. I got pneumonia a month ago and she’s been really caring. For a long time, it seemed like all she could focus on was herself, which I understood, but it feels good to have her considering me and caring about me.”

“Of course. It’s important to feel cared for. Tell me more about your pneumonia.”

“I kinda let it get out of hand. I didn’t take any time off when I got sick and I ended up kind of crashing hard. The doctor wanted to admit me to the observation unit at the hospital just so I’d actually rest.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Anya kinda talked to me. Actually, O did too.”

“About…?”

“Taking care of myself.”

“So, what do you think makes it difficult to take care of yourself?”

She shrugs, but Luna stays quiet, waiting for Raven to actually think about it.

“Um… i guess… it just doesn’t feel like a priority. Like, something always feels more important.”

“What does it say about how much you value yourself that you always put yourself last?”

“I don’t know. I guess I don’t value myself very much.”

“Is that working for you?”

“Clearly not.”

They talk about ways Raven can prioritize herself and her well-being and Raven agrees to try some of them over the next week. 

  
  


Raven asks Octavia if she wants to go on a vacation after the trial is over; just a 3-day weekend at a cabin on a lake. She can’t take a ton of time off of work, but she knows they both need to get away. Octavia agrees and they start to plan. 

  
  
  


“I’ve got some news about the trial,” Lexa says a few weeks later. “The judge says we can tape your testimony ahead of time. You’ll have to answer questions from me and from the defense attorney but we can do it anywhere; here if you like. But you’ll still have to be available for being cross examined at the actual trial.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll try to be as thorough as I can in preparing you for potential questions they might ask you.”

“Okay,” she says again. 

  
  


That night Octavia has a night terror. Raven jumps out of bed and turns on the light, stumbling over her bad leg. Her girlfriend is screaming and crying. Hyperion is awake and barking in the guest bedroom. She rubs Octavia’s shoulder hard enough that she can feel it, but still gently. 

“Octavia, wake up, love. You’re okay. Wake up.”

She eventually opens her eyes and looks around the room wildly, searching for Emerson and for a way to escape. 

“You’re alright. You’re safe.”

Octavia looks up into Raven’s face, her eyes filling with tears.

“It’s alright.”

Raven sits down on the bed, gathering Octavia in her arms. Octavia clutches onto her shakily, breaths still coming fast.

“You’re safe, love, I’m here.”

She buries her face in Raven’s shoulder, shakily exhaling. Raven models deep slow breaths for her till Octavia’s follow. Eventually, she releases Raven and sits back.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Um...he… uh...” she sighs, clenching her hands together. Raven can tell she’s suppressing the urge to dig her fingernails into her skin. Raven grabs a stress ball from the bedside table and hands it to her. She nods and starts squishing the ball.

“He used to… play a lot of mind games with me. Like restraining me and then telling me if I could get out he’d let me go. Or making me pretend I liked him raping me in order to get things like water or a shower. He loved watching me struggle; seeing my pain.”

Raven looks heartbroken.

“Fuck, honey, I’m sorry.”

“He’d laugh at me after he hurt me. The things he called me…” She winces. “I’m not gonna—you don’t need to know.”

Raven looks at her, feeling deep pain for her girlfriend. She has tears in her eyes she’s trying to wipe away, knowing Octavia has a hard time with other people’s emotions about her captivity. 

“I—“

“You don’t have to say anything.”

Raven takes a deep breath and nods. 

“Do you want to get some tea?”

Octavia nods. Raven spots her while she transfers to her wheelchair. She’s so close to independence, but she’s fallen enough times that she still needs a spotter. Raven straps on her brace and they make their way to the kitchen, Octavia stopping to let Hyperion out of the guest room. He jumps into her lap and she hugs him. 

Raven plugs in the kettle while Octavia shuffles through the tea selection.

“What kind do you want?”

“Something fruity.”

“Raspberry?”

“Sure.”

Octavia picks an herbal blend. They sit at the table, clutching their hot mugs.

“So I think I’m going to try going to a weekly gaming night Monty’s hosting at his house. I was wondering if you wanted to come with?”

She thinks for a minute. “I don’t think I can keep track of everything in an RPG or board game.”

“That’s okay. You could come and hang out. Or we could see if Bellamy could be with you.”

She nods at that. 

“I can text him. It’s going to be on Tuesdays.”

“I’m not going to have to be watched forever, am I?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. I mean, I’m a little less concerned now about you hurting yourself, and I hope that shows. I’ve been trying to give you more healthy space. But I’m still worried about you having a medical problem or anxiety attack and not being able to advocate for yourself.”

“But I’ve been coming to you or Anya when I have panic attacks that need meds.”

“You’re right, you have.”

“And if you just left me for a couple of hours, the likelihood of me having a medical emergency would be low.”

“You do need to get better at transfers.”

“I will. I am.”

Raven nods hesitantly. 

“But then I think you need to trust me. I think I’ve earned that.”

“You’re right, you have. You know I’m so fucking proud of you, don’t you?”

She nods.

“I just worry. But I think you’re right. I do need to trust you.”

They agree that Bellamy will come over on Tuesday nights until Octavia can safely transfer on her own. Raven looks at the clock and realizes it’s only 3:30am. 

“Wanna try to sleep some more?”

“Yeah.” She puts Hyperion back in the guest bedroom then wheels back into the bedroom. Raven has to help her a little with her transfer into bed when her wrist gives out. 

“Rae?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you sleep with me? I mean, sleep in my bed with me?”

“Is that gonna go ok when you wake up in bed with someone?”

She shrugs. “Only one way to find out. I mean, if you’re okay with it.”

“I am. You know I love cuddling with you.” She takes off her brace and gets in bed next to Octavia. It’s a little cramped, but once Raven is wrapped around Octavia, they fit perfectly. 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your continued readership of this story and patience as I get it out with work taking up so much of my time right now!

Octavia wakes up with Raven’s arm still slung around her. She tenses momentarily but is able to orient herself to who’s touching her and calm herself down before her anxiety ramps up too much. She reaches to put a hand over Raven’s arm and smiles when Raven holds her tighter and kisses her hair.

“How’d you sleep the rest of the night?”

“Good. You?”

“Good too.”

Octavia turns and kisses Raven on the lips. 

“You’re my favorite.”

Raven grins. “Hard not to see why. I’m awesome.”

Octavia smiles and rolls her eyes and Raven kisses her nose. 

“You’re my favorite too. I’m gonna go take Hyperion out.”

“Okay.”

With the trial fast approaching, Octavia remembers she’s been meaning to text Zoe Monroe for weeks. She finally does and her friend asks if she wants to video chat later that day. She ends up FaceTimeing Zoe after her therapy appointment. 

“Hey!” 

“Hey, how are you?”

“I’m okay. Nervous for the trial but hanging in there. How about you?”

“Yeah, nervous too. You wanna see my puppy?”

“You got a puppy?”

“Yeah, we’re training him to be a service dog. This is Hyperion.” She points the phone down so Zoe can see him nestled up next to her.

“That’s awesome. Aww, he’s adorable!”

“Yeah, he’s really sweet and snuggly. And smart, too.”

Hyperion yawns and stretches before putting his chin on her thigh. “This little guy masters every trick we teach him. Right now I’m training him to follow my hand around me so if I need him to be in front of me or behind, I can just give him the command and he follows where I point.”

“Cool.”

“What’s new with you?”

“Um… I’ve been talking a lot about identity with my counselor.”

“Yeah? Wanna tell me about it?”

“Um… I guess… I don’t really feel like I fit with my gender assigned at birth. I don’t really feel like a girl. But I also don’t feel like a boy. I feel like both and neither at the same time. So I guess I identify as non-binary.”

“Oh, okay. That’s cool that you’re learning more about yourself.”

Zoe nods, encouraged by Octavia’s receptiveness.

“I… I told my parents I don't want to go by Zoe anymore. I want to go by Monroe.”

“Monroe. I feel like that fits you.”

Monroe smiles at that. 

“Me too. And um… I told them I want to go by they/them pronouns.”

“Okay. I’ll plan to do that too, if you’d like.”

They nod. 

“Sounds good.”

“Are your parents respecting that?”

“Yeah. They don’t totally understand but they’re doing their best to learn.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

“Um, I talked with Harper’s mom the other day.”

“Really? How is Harper?”

“She’s okay. I guess she was diagnosed with DID.”

“Um, sorry I don’t know that term.”

“Dissociative Identity Disorder. Essentially, to cope with the trauma, her brain split into multiple identities who could keep her emotionally safe and help compartmentalize what was happening so she could cope. You know, she was only 12 when Emerson took her.”

“Jesus. Is she at home?”

“Yeah. She’s not dangerous, just scared and not super trusting right now. People demonize DID and it’s not like she’s got some evil identity. That’s just in the movies. I’ve been doing a lot of research since I found out about it.”

“Okay. Is she doing the trial?”

“I don’t think so. One of the features of her DID is that if one of her other identities is ‘fronting,’ then she doesn’t always remember what happened.”

“Wow. He really messed us up, huh?”

“Yep.”

They’re silent for a while.

Monroe takes a deep breath. “It’s weird, sometimes I almost feel like everything is normal. And sometimes, when I have a flashback or my anxiety spikes or I notice a scar I didn’t know was there, it feels like nothing will ever be normal again.”

Octavia nods.

“How have you been coping with it all?”

“Well, initially, I kinda just didn’t. And that really bit me in the a—butt later.”

“I’m almost 16. You can say ass.”

Octavia smiles, remembering what it felt like to feel like pretty much an adult as a teenager. 

“I ended up back in the hospital for a while for some not so smart decisions.”

“Did you try to hurt yourself?”

She presses her lips together and nods. 

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I think I’m finally glad too. Things have been better. I’ve been happier. Raven and I are kind of finding our groove again and I’m a lot more independent than I was back when I first got home. I’d just love to not be in a wheelchair. It’s so much better than when I couldn’t get around at all independently, but I used to run and do CrossFit. I wish I could do that stuff again.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you have to use the chair? Weren’t you gonna get surgery on your knees so you could walk again?”

“Yeah, it’s a whole other problem. My blood basically doesn’t get pumped effectively when I stand. My heart rate goes up and my blood pressure goes down so much when I stand it makes me pass out.”

“Yikes”

“Yeah. I’m trying to strengthen my leg muscles that help my blood vessels pump the blood but so far after around 30 seconds, I start blacking out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks. How’s your health these days?”

“It’s okay. I still have check ups like every month for one thing or another but I’m almost up to a healthy weight again.”

“That’s awesome. I know how hard that can be.”

They nod. 

“So I know Lexa set up a plan so I can do my testimony ahead of time without Emerson there. Is that what you’re doing too?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“I mean, I think I could probably do it in front of him and a whole crowd of people if I absolutely had to, but it’ll be easier with just the judge and lawyers and my mom.”

“For sure. So… have you been out in public much?”

“Um, a few times. Mostly just at the doctors’ office.”

“Have you had people recognize you from the news?”

They nod, grimacing.

Octavia nods back.

“It’s… I know they’re just curious. I understand where they’re coming from. But I don’t like being stared at.”

“I totally get it. You know, you don’t have to be understanding. You can be mad.”

“I know.”

“Good, because all of this? Us having to hash out everything that man ever did to us in order for us to get justice? It’s bullshit.”

They smirk. “You’re right… it is.”

“It’s total bullshit, right?”

“Yeah, it’s bullshit.”

Octavia smiles at this. 

Monroe sighs and sits back in the chair they’re in.

“It’s so good talking with you.”

“Good talking with you too, Monroe. Call anytime.”

“Okay. Same to you.”

  
  


It’s a week till the trial. Octavia has been checking in with Niylah every day and having actual sessions when they feel like they’re needed. Dr. Diyoza had given her extra as-needed anxiety and sleep meds in case she needed them, but so far she hasn’t used them. She’s been doing mindfulness exercises in the mornings and evenings, taking time to go on walks (or in her case, rolls) with Anya, eating as much variety and nutrient dense food as she can muster, using her stress ball, and telling her people when she needs a break. She’s doing everything right. And it still feels _ so _ hard. She has panic attacks 3 days that week. Two she needs medication for. She doesn’t view it as a failure. She’s doing her best in a situation in which there’s no way to feel okay. Raven holds her tight after she has night terrors several times that week, when her brain won’t shut off. And then it’s the day before she has to give her testimony.

She’s picking out clothes for the trial with Hyperion by her side. 

“How’s it going,” Anya asks. She’s been keeping a closer eye on Octavia, knowing how much stress she’s under.

“Fine. I’m thinking of wearing this,” she says, holding up grey dress pants and a button down shirt.

“Looks good.”

“And I’m gonna borrow some of Raven’s heels since I can’t walk anyway.”

“Hey, your standing training is getting better.”

“Yeah, if you mean I black out by 45 seconds instead of 15.”

“That’s still an improvement.”

“You’re right, it is.”

“Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah. That’s like the fifth time today you’ve asked.”

“Sorry. I just want you to know it’s okay if you’re not.”

“I know. Thanks. I… I’m nervous, but I kind of just want to get it over with already; stop anticipating it and just do it.”

“That makes sense. So I’m planning on coming at 6:30 tomorrow.”

“Good, okay.”

“I thought I could bring some tea and breakfast. What do you want?”

“I don’t know. I probably won’t be hungry.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat something. You know your primary care doctor was pressuring you to keep gaining weight at your last visit.”   
She sighs and rubs her forehead. “Maybe a protein shake. That’ll go down pretty easy.”

“Sounds good.” 

They hear the door open and Raven yell that she’s home. Anya rubs Octavia’s shoulder. “You’re doing great. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Okay.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sending out all the love to any readers who are nonbinary or diagnosed with DID. You are precious, loved, and worthy. 
> 
> The next chapter starts the testimonies and trial. What do you think will happen?


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm determined to finish this story if it kills me. Updates will continue to come, even if it takes a little longer in between.
> 
> Content Warning: Mentions of homophobia and corrective rape.

Anya comes over as promised the next morning. Octavia is already dressed and sitting on the couch with Hyperion in her lap.

“How’s it going, O?”

“Hanging in there.”

“I’ve got some breakfast for you.”

“Yipee,” she says sarcastically.

Anya smirks and hands her the protein shake.

An hour later, Lexa, the defense attorney, the judge, and a court reporter show up along with someone to help set up a video recording of the testimony. Raven had set up extra chairs in the living room so everyone would have a place to sit. After the tech person gets things set up, the start without much preamble.

  
  


“State your name for the record.”

“Octavia Blake.”

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god?”

“I do.”

She lays out everything, voice mostly emotionless. The trial is one time that Niylah has said that dissociation might be for the best. She talks about the rape, beatings, and mind games. She talks about the day she realized that the screams she was hearing weren’t in her imagination; that there were other women in the house enduring the same treatment as she was. 

Much of what Octavia says, Raven and Anya have heard before. But there are a few things they didn’t know. One is that Emerson told her he had been watching her for weeks before he took her. He knew she had a girlfriend and would often threaten to go and kill Raven when she didn’t do exactly what he wanted. She talks about how Emerson thought he was doing her a favor, ‘curing’ her of her sexual orientation. When she talks about the way Emerson treated her, the court reporter keeps having to wipe tears out of her eyes. Raven is subconsciously picking at her cuticles, watching Octavia for signs that she’s getting overwhelmed. Octavia’s voice starts to get hoarse and Anya goes and makes her some tea with honey. They break for lunch at 11:30 and everyone leaves except Raven, Octavia, and Anya.

“How’re you doing, honey?”

“I'm tired.” She’s laying on the couch, Hyperion’s head in her lap.

“I know this is hard for you. I’m so proud of you.” Raven leans down and kisses Octavia’s forehead, squeezing her shoulder.

They somehow get some food into Octavia, though she has no appetite, and the rest of the legal crew return after an hour to finish the testimony. The defense attorney is almost apologetic at making her answer questions. She makes a few objections to things Octavia says, but mostly just listens along with everyone else. Lexa asks questions they had discussed in their meetings with only the occasional divergence from their original plan. When Lexa and the defense attorney both say they have no more questions, the judge says they can adjourn. 

“Octavia, you did so well today,” Lexa says.

“Okay.” She’s drooping by the second, pale and exhausted.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the courthouse.”

She nods.

Lexa leaves and Octavia goes straight to the bathroom, saying she needs a shower. Anya and Raven make eye contact. 

“Is there anything sharp in there,” Anya asks.

“No.”

“Okay.”

After fifteen minutes, Raven goes in to check on her. 

“Hon, you okay?”

“Yeah, just need to wash off the day.”

“Okay. Don’t stay in there too long. You know your heart rate doesn’t do so good in the heat.”

“I know.”

She gets out shortly after and gets into bed, streaming a sitcom from her phone. Raven comes in with 2 burritos and Hyperion on her heels.

“Got some dinner for you, hon.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Okay. Can I snuggle with you?”

She nods and makes room for Raven, who takes off her brace and slides into bed next to her. She pats the bed till Hyperion jumps up onto it. He curls up next to Octavia and she knows he can sense her mixed emotions. Octavia puts her head on Raven’s shoulder. 

“Do you want to talk about anything you said today?”

She shakes her head.

“Okay.”

They spend the evening mostly in silence till Raven gets up and takes Hyperion out and puts him in his crate for the night, then gets ready for bed herself. Octavia is awake, but has a glazed expression.

“O?”

She shakes herself a bit and looks up at Raven.

“You ready for me to turn out the lights?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

  
  


Octavia startles awake sometime in the night. She's shaking and her breaths are coming too quickly. Raven hasn’t woken up and she feels bad waking her but finally convinces herself it’s what Raven would want her to do.

“R-Rae?” She cringes at how hoarse and quivery her voice is. She shakes Raven’s shoulder gently. Raven blinks open her eyes.

“What’s up?”

“N-nightmare.”

Raven turns on the light. “Anything I can do?”

“Move so I can g-get to my wheelchair?”

She nods and sits up, scooting forward and pulling her bad leg with her so Octavia can get around her, as Octavia's side of the bed is up against the wall. She notices Octavia’s shaky limbs.

Octavia goes to the bathroom and splashes some cold water on her face. When she gets back, Raven already has one of her sleeping pills sitting on the nightstand.

“I was dreaming about him burning me.”

Raven looks up, surprised that Octavia is volunteering this information.

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“I… I feel really bad.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t feel safe right now.”

“Okay. Thank you for telling me. Will you stay here in bed with me?”

She nods. Octavia crawls into bed from her wheelchair and curls so her head is in her arms and her knees are bent up to her chest. She’s shaking and Raven reaches out and rubs her shoulder gently.

“Today was a lot,” Octavia says, words slightly muffled by the arm of her sweatshirt.

“I know.”

“Could you get Hyperion in here?”

“Sure. Are you going to be okay while I take him outside first?”

She nods.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Raven gets up and straps her brace on, then goes to the guest room. Hyperion wakes up and starts wagging his tail. She opens his crate door.

“Hey buddy. Let’s take you out and then we’re gonna go help Octavia feel better, okay?”

She takes him outside and then comes back in and leads Hyperion to the bedroom. He waits patiently till Raven pats the bed, and then hops up onto it.

“H-hey s-sweet boy,” Octavia says, running her hands through his curly fur. She’s got some tear tracks on her face that Raven is fairly sure weren’t there when she saw her face last. 

“O, do you want to take something?”

She shakes her head, sniffling.

“Alright. Okay. Just keep me posted, okay?” Raven gets back in bed and unclasps her brace, then scoots so her hip is pressed up against Octavia’s.

“I-I need a little s-s-space,” Octavia whimpers.

“Oh, sorry.” She quickly scoots away.

“’s okay.” She squeezes her eyes shut and brings her hands up to her forehead, fingernails digging into her skin. Her breaths start coming fast again.

Raven watches her, biting her lip. 

Hyperion moves so he’s sitting on top of Octavia and starts licking her hands and face. Octavia’s eyes pop open and she watches him as he continues to try to distract her, licking her face, and nosing his way through her hands. Her breaths, which had started to speed up, are slowing again. She weaves her fingers in his curly fur and he eventually settles so his head is resting on her chest. Any time her hands start to go back up to her forehead, he starts licking her again. They sit there for several minutes.

“I think that was his best interruption yet,” Raven says, 

Octavia nods, clearly exhausted.

“Do you need anything?”

She shakes her head.

Raven puts her hand on the bed between them, offering silent support without pushing Octavia’s boundary. They sit for a while in silence. Raven starts to doze. Octavia hasn’t calmed enough to sleep yet, but she can feel her heartbeat slowly decreasing as she continues to lay there. Tomorrow she has to face him again. The man who gave her all these scars, mental and physical. She wonders what his justification is for his not guilty plea. She wonders how she’ll respond when she sees him. There’s so much she wonders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think of Hyperion's panic attack interruption? How do you think Octavia will do at the trial?
> 
> Thanks so much for your continued readership! It means the world to me! And your comments are so appreciated too. <3


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trial begins.

The next morning, Anya comes at 6:15am to help Octavia get ready. She’s exhausted from her nightmare and almost-panic attack so she’s groggy and slow when Anya arrives.

“How’re you doing this morning?”

Octavia groans in response. 

“Not so hot?”

“I was up for a few hours last night.”

“Nightmare?”

“Yup. And like half a panic attack.”

“Half?”

“Hyperion did a good job interrupting it.”

The dog’s ears perk up at his name and he gets up from where he was sitting watching Octavia brush her hair. His tale wags as he looks up at her.

“Such a good boy,” Anya says, smiling. She’s not an animal person, but even she has to admit that Hyperion is both cute and helpful. 

Raven is getting ready in the bathroom while Octavia puts on her clothes she had picked out—black crop pants, a white top, a black blazer and some black heels. She’s discovered that the skinny heels poke through the grate of her wheelchair’s footplate, so Anya tapes up the footplate with electrical tape. 

“I brought you a protein shake,” Anya says, holding out the cup. Octavia scowls but takes it and sips on the straw. 

“So… are you feeling like you’ll do okay today?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

“Are you taking any extra anxiety medication?”

“Yeah. Just a low dose Ativan. I have some Valium on standby in case things really go South, but I’m hoping to avoid that.”

“For sure. I think the judge seemed pretty understanding of your anxiety so if you start panicking on the stand, just speak up and tell them you aren’t feeling well and you need a break.”

She nods, looking uneasy.

“You’ll do okay.” 

Octavia isn’t prepared to see the crowd of press outside the courthouse. When Lexa had warned them they would be there, she had figured it’d be one or two local news stations. Instead, there are several national news stations, all the local channels, several newspapers, a few magazines, and some tabloids. Fortunately, Lexa had arranged for bailiffs to escort them from their car. As they make their way, she can hear the reporters shouting questions. She distinctly hears someone shout “how does it feel to have to face the man who held you as a sex slave?” She ducks her head and Anya takes over pushing her wheelchair as she falters. When they get inside, Raven searches her face.

“You okay?”

She nods, taking a deep breath.

Lexa meets them in the lobby after a few minutes.

“How’re we doing? Octavia, do you feel prepared?”

“Um… yeah, I think so.”

“Good.”

She wheels into the courtroom and intends to carry herself like she’s not anxious or nauseous. But then she sees Emerson walking in from a door on the side of the room. He makes eye contact with her and smirks, like even if he’s found guilty, he still wins. Because he’ll be in her mind forever. She can’t erase the things that happened. She can’t remove the scars he gave her. She can’t get rid of the overwhelming feeling of helplessness he made her feel every day for four years. Nothing can rectify the things he did to her. She feels her forehead break out in sweat and her throat get tight and suddenly she flails an arm out and finds purchase on Anya’s shirt. She clutches onto the shirt tightly and pulls Anya closer to her.

“Get me to the bathroom,” she says in barely above a whisper.

Anya hears the desperation in her voice and doesn’t question her, just steps behind her wheelchair and grabs the handles , quickly turning her around and pushing her toward the bathroom. When they get inside, Octavia mumbles something and then “toilet” and Anya practically shoves her wheelchair into the accessible stall just before she starts throwing up. Raven comes into the bathroom and shares a worried look with Anya, who has her hand on Octavia’s back. When the heaving finally stops, Octavia starts to lift her head too quickly and clutches it, black dots swimming in her vision.

“Easy there,” Anya says, grabbing onto her shoulders and easing her down so her head is between her knees. She sits there for a minute.

“Okay,” She says, and lifts herself to sitting upright more slowly. There are tears dripping down her cheeks that have nothing to do with throwing up.

“How’re you doing?”

Octavia sniffles. 

“Alright, so maybe I shouldn’t have made you drink that shake,” Anya says.

Octavia half-laughs, some snot coming out of her nose. 

“Ew, here.” Anya grimaces and hands her some toilet paper to blow her nose, then some hand sanitizer from her purse. 

“Do you wanna talk about it,” Raven asks. 

“No.” She wipes her cheeks, willing herself to stop crying.

“Do you... feel like you’ll be able to go back in?” Her voice is full of hesitation. 

Octavia sits up straighter and wipes her eyes. “I mean, I think I have to, don’t I?”

“No,” Raven says. “I think we’ve talked a lot about this trial but I don’t think we’ve talked at all about if you’re okay with doing it. I don’t think anyone would blame you if you didn’t, or  _ couldn’t  _ go in there.”

Octavia entertains the thought for a moment.  _ She could leave this all and move on with her life _ . It sounds so nice. But then she remembers hearing what she now knows was Harper’s voice through the walls as she screamed. She thinks of Roma’s remains buried in Emerson’s yard. They can’t be at the trial, even if they wanted to. Harper isn’t stable enough, and Roma is dead. They don’t get to have that moment of justice. They don’t get to air the horrors that Emerson had subjected them to and let the jury decide his punishment. She knows she has to do it.

“An, can you get that keychain I had you put in your bag?”

Anya nods and rifles through her bag. It contains everything she could possibly need for the day and Anya has to shove a bunch of things aside to find the resin cat keychain Octavia had asked her to bring. It’s pink and the ears are sharp. It’s sold as makeshift brass knuckles for women’s self defense. Octavia had ordered it to remind herself why she was doing this trial in the first place. Emerson had stolen away 4 people’s lives and left them with irreparable damage. Even if nothing could truly make up for that, he deserved to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“I’m going back in.” 

“Okay.”

Octavia wheels out of the stall and looks at herself in the full length mirror. She smoothes her short hair, which she had swooped back with product so it resembled an updo. She wipes her eyes again and she sets her intention, her warrior face. She’s doing this for Harper, Roma, and Monroe. And she’s doing this for herself.

When she gets out of the bathroom, Bellamy is standing in the hallway, eyes full of concern. 

“Hey, you okay?”

She nods and leads them into the courtroom. They sit in the back because that’s where the wheelchair accessible spots are. She’s grateful for it, as it means she doesn’t have to look at Emerson’s face. She cranes her neck and looks at the jury. They look serious, resolute. 

The judge starts the trial and Lexa presents Monroe’s testimony first. Octavia is mostly numb to the descriptions of violence. Anya pulls a stress ball from her purse and hands it to her when she notices Octavia pinching the back of her hand with her fingernails. She accepts it and starts squeezing it. She’s trying not to let herself acknowledge how horrible it is to hear that the things that were done to her were done to someone else. And worse, she is disgusted to find herself comparing their situations, who had it worse. She knows it’s not a competition. She’s thankful that Monroe didn’t have to survive years of abuse like she did. But a small yet roaring part of herself is bitter and jealous that Monroe was only there for 10 months; that Monroe was never pregnant. Her eyes get glassy and her cheeks flush with shame. 

Raven notices Octavia’s expression and opens the small cooler bag she had brought. Inside are several ice packs and she hands one to Anya, who hands it to Octavia. Ice is one thing they’ve learned that helps ground Octavia to the present. And though the present isn’t exactly an ideal place at the moment, Raven knows it’s better than wherever Octavia’s head is at right now. Octavia flinches in surprise when Anya presses the ice pack into her hand. She glances up and sees Anya’s, Raven’s, and Bellamy’s eyes on her. She swallows and presses the ice pack against her hot cheeks, nodding to reassure them that she’s alright. She’s not sure if that’s actually true, but that’s a thought for a later time. They recess for lunch around noon. Anya had ordered them subs and they eat on the patio outside the courthouse mostly in silence.

“How’re you holding up, O,” Bellamy asks.

She nods “I’m okay. I wish Hyperion were here.”

“I know, hon,” says Raven. “Someone could go get him so he can be here at the end of the day.”

“No, it’s okay for now. Maybe we could have someone do that when I’m gonna be cross-examined. Like maybe at lunch that day, or at the end of the day.”

“Sounds like a great idea. Maybe I could have Lincoln bring him.”

She nods. 

  
  


Monroe’s testimony takes the majority of the day. At the end, the defense attorney cross examines them. Monroe looks tiny and pale up on the stand. The defense attorney asks them why they did a video testimony, and Monroe mumbles that they weren’t sure if they’d be able to talk about everything Emerson did with him sitting right in front of them. It’s the least eloquent Octavia has ever seen Monroe. They’re asked several more questions, and then told they can go sit down. Monroe freezes after their glance passes by Emerson. They look glued to the spot. There are a few whispers from people in the courtroom and then Monroe’s mom goes up to the stand to retrieve her child. She takes them by the hand and shoulder and leads them down the stairs and to a seat. Octavia can see Monroe put their head in their hands after they sit down. 

At the end of the day, they start playing Octavia’s testimony, but only get about a fourth of the way through. Octavia feels ill listening to her own shaky voice describe how Emerson had abused her. She stares at the wall and starts doing what she had done in Emerson’s basement: memorizing the patterns of irregularities on the wall and pretending she isn’t where she is.

Suddenly, Anya is snapping her fingers in front of her face and saying her name. She startles and looks up at her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You weren’t responding for a little while there.”

“Is the-- are we done for the day?” She looks around the room and realizes most of the people have left already.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

They walk out to the parking lot and bailiffs keep the press from getting too close to them. Buds are forming on the trees again for Spring. Octavia hasn’t seen that for four years, and she glances up at the trees planted in a cement barrier.

“I thought tonight we could get some pizza and maybe watch some Parks and Rec,” Raven says as Octavia transfers herself into the car. Anya pulls the wheels off her wheelchair to put everything in the trunk.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“How are you?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Was it hard to hear Monroe’s testimony today?”

“I can’t think about it right now. I need to get through the trial. Which means I can’t think about it.”

“Okay.”

  
  


They get home and Octavia goes immediately to Hyperion’s room. The dog can sense that she’s anxious and pushes against her knees till she pets him. She takes him outside and then brings him to the couch and transfers herself onto it. Her legs and arms are growing stronger and she’s proud of that, even if she still can’t really stand or walk yet. Hyperion keeps nudging his nose against her hands as they watch Parks and Rec and eat pizza to keep her from scratching herself. Raven asks if there’s anything she can do to help her, but Octavia says no. She knows tomorrow she’ll likely be called to the stand to be cross-examined. Monroe had been up there for hours and she was only in Emerson’s captivity for 10 months. She’s not sure how long the defense attorney will want to question her, and she’s nauseated thinking of the ways he’ll try to tear apart her story. That night, Octavia asks Raven for some of her pain medication she hasn’t needed in months.

“You sore, hon?”

“Yeah, I think I was just tensing my muscles all day.”

“That makes sense. What’s bothering you the most?”

“My neck and shoulders.”

“Could I give you a message?”

“I mean, if you want to.”

“I do.”

Raven sits on the couch and pulls Octavia’s wheelchair up so she can sit behind her.

“I think I need you a little lower. Can I help you onto the ground?”

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Okay.”

Octavia moves to the floor without much ado and Raven works at the knots in her shoulders and neck for a long time. When she finally stops, Octavia leans her head back so she’s staring upside down at Raven’s face.

“I bet this isn’t where you thought you’d be a year ago.”

Raven runs a finger up the side of her face. “A year ago I thought I’d never see you again. I’m so happy I was wrong.”

When Octavia gets up to climb into her wheelchair, she can feel her heart pounding in her chest and her vision greys out for a minute, but she doesn’t collapse or lose consciousness, and she’s happy with that. When her vision clears, Raven is standing in front of her in case she falls.

“I’m good.”

“Good. I think that’s our signal it’s time to go to bed.”

"Yeah, that sounds good." She takes her extra sleeping medication and falls asleep by 8:30 that night. She needs all the rest she can get in preparation to go on the stand.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the trial started a little rough, but it seems they've learned some good ways of managing Octavia's mental health. How do you think she'll do when she's cross-examined?


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Victim blaming, blood, self-harm

The next morning, they work like a well-oiled machine to get ready for court. Octavia had considered wearing a skirt for court, but her knees still bear large scars from her repair surgeries and she doesn’t want to show them. She ends up in black pants, a black sleeveless top and a white blazer. They had ordered her several things for court that would fit her at her current weight. Her clothes from before her abduction are still too big, but she’s been slowly making progress with Anya’s constant gentle prodding for her to eat. She still gets stomach aches with nearly every meal, and her GI doctor is considering referring her to a specialist in Chicago who focuses on motility. 

In court, they continue playing the recorded testimony and then Lexa presents evidence. She shows a few non-graphic pictures from the rape kit that had been performed the first day in the hospital that show Octavia’s scarred back, her bruised neck, and how mangled her arm had been. There are gasps from the jury and Octavia looks down, cheeks burning. Lexa shows pictures of the bloodstains on the carpet in Emerson’s house, trailing from the bedroom she had been kept in to the upstairs room where she had found the phone to call 911. Octavia looks away and lets herself imagine she’s anywhere but here. It had been something she’d done every day in Emerson’s clutches, so she slips naturally into daydreaming. 

Anya puts a hand on her arm and she looks up, wondering how much time has passed. 

“They called you to the stand.”

“Oh.”

She shakily pushes herself forward, goes up the ramp to the stand and is sworn in, then wheels over to the podium. She remembers Niylah’s advice to look at the jury and judge, and ignore the rest of the courtroom. Then, the cross-examination starts. The lawyer tries, again and again, to poke holes in her story. Most of the attempts are unsuccessful but it leaves her sweaty and anxious. Anya had sent her up to the stand with a rubber stress ball and by late morning, she’s ripping chunks off of it with her fingernails.

“Ms. Blake, you’ve said you don’t remember how you were allegedly abducted by Mr. Emerson, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what you were doing that night?”

“I was out with some friends.”

“Out at a bar, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have anything to drink that night?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how many drinks you had?”

“I don’t remember.”

“There were 6 drinks charged to your credit card that night.”

“Okay…”

“Do you think you were blackout drunk that night?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you expect yourself to be sober after 6 drinks?”

“Objection, leading question,” Lexa says.

“Objection noted. Mr. Bartok, please rephrase your question.”

“If you don’t remember it, and you had 6 drinks over the course of just a couple of hours, how do you know that Mr. Emerson abducted you? How do you know you didn’t go willingly?”

“I—“

“You easily could have.”

“I didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I woke up chained to a bed. You don’t chain up a willing participant.”

The defense attorney moves on but it feels like years before they finally recess for lunch. 

Octavia wheels down to meet Raven, Anya, and Bellamy at the first row of seats. 

“You’re doing so great up there, hon,” Raven says. 

She nods, not sure what to say. 

They make their way out to a corner of the lobby with some chairs where Lincoln is waiting with Hyperion in his “Service Dog In-Training” vest. He wiggles with excitement when Octavia rolls up and immediately hops into her lap. Raven and Anya know this means Hyperion senses she’s anxious. He nudges his nose against her neck and chin and gives her a few licks.

“Hey buddy,” she says, burying her face in his fur and hugging him. Lincoln hands out the burritos he had picked up on the way. After a few minutes without Octavia raising her head, Anya gets closer to her. . 

“O, let’s get some food in you, hey?”

She doesn’t respond. Anya glances at Raven. She’s about to try again with Octavia hesitantly lifts her head and accepts a burrito. Anya, Lincoln, Raven, and Bellamy keep up a light conversation while Octavia eats in silence. Near the end of the lunch hour, Octavia thanks Lincoln for bringing Hyperion. 

“Anytime. It’s the least I could do. I also wanted to let you know you’re welcome to come ride Helios this weekend if you’d like. I know that’s something that helps with some of your mental health stuff. And frankly, Helios misses you. ”

She smiles. “I’ll have to see how I’m feeling, but that sounds really good.”

She pales slightly when she hears it’s time to go back in, but she gives Hyperion a quick hug and then says “down,” and the dog quickly jumps down from her lap as she hands the leash to Lincoln. Anya hands her another stress ball from her bag. 

“Thanks,” Octavia says, setting her face to go back into the courtroom. 

When she gets back on the stand, the defense attorney continues with his tough questioning. Octavia manages to hold it together through it all, but by 3 in the afternoon, she’s utterly spent. Fortunately, the judge seems to be aware of it because she calls the day a little early. Octavia shuts her eyes on the ride home. She’s too amped on stress chemicals to sleep but she doesn’t want to talk. She pretty much only speaks when spoken to the rest of the night.

Her questioning continues into the next day. Octavia tears through another stress ball and subconsciously starts digging her nails into the backs of her hands. At lunch, Anya notices this while her arms are wrapped around Hyperion. She runs a finger over some red scratches and Octavia flinches and pulls her hands back. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s…” she looks at her hands, then down at the floor, guiltily. 

“Do you want some Ativan?”

“No. I need a clear head. I might say something I don’t want to.”

“I hear you. And I also see that you’re hurting yourself. I think you’re trying to ground yourself with pain.”

She nods.

“How about we send your lunchbox and ice packs up to the stand with you?”

“Is that allowed?”

“It’s part of the toolkit Niylah helped us put together. I think the judge will be okay with it.”

It takes another day for the defense attorney to finally let her be done. They can all see Octavia's relief as she wheels down to the spot where Bellamy, Raven, and Anya are sitting. She shakily asks Anya for an Ativan and ends up resting her head on Bellamy’s shoulder and zoning out for the rest of the day. 

  
  


When they get home, Raven wants to do something to help her relax a bit. 

“Hey, do you wanna take a bath? That used to be something that really relaxed you.”

“Uh, sure.”

Raven gets it ready and helps Octavia in as her standing and not fainting skills are still pretty spotty. It is relaxing for a little while. But then she looks down at herself. She still has the stretch marks from her pregnancy, the pockmarks from being burned, the scar from her surgery to fix the damage of her stab wound. Her wrist still has a long, thick scar where she had cut into it. She still has scars on her knees from the surgery to repair them and a scar on the arm that had been so badly shattered and incorrectly healed she couldn’t bend it. She’s missing the abs she had once had and been proud of. She’s still underweight, all her muscles still weak from the years of absent use and malnutrition. Her skin is discolored with poor circulation from her POTS. Her body reminds her of all the things that have been done to her without her consent.

She needs to get out of the bath. Get some clothes on to cover everything she dislikes about herself. She knows she should call Raven to help her, but doesn’t want to need help. She just wants _something_ to be normal. She sits up and pulls the drain open, then gets her feet under her and straightens up. The second she’s standing, she realizes her mistake in not asking for help as her world goes dark. 

“Wake up, honey. “

She tries to open her eyes. Her nose hurts for some reason and her right eye is having trouble opening. Raven seems to be pressing her nose hard. 

“Ow, let go.”

“You’ve got a bloody nose.”

“Oh.”

She sees Hyperion peering over a white object at her and then she realizes they’re both in the bathtub. Raven is squatting next to her, clothes soaked. Octavia is resting on her side, still naked. She quickly looks away from her body, hating that they're both stuck looking at it.

“Shit. Did I…”

“Pass out and smack your face on the tub? Yeah, you did. I was right out in the kitchen, O. You couldn’t have called for me?”

“I wanted to do it myself. “

“Yeah well, we can see how well that went.”

“Stop treating me like a child.”

“Well, stop acting like one.”

They’re silent for a minute. Raven lifts the towel from her nose. She certainly _does_ have a bloody nose. She feels the blood dripping down her lip and Raven quickly holds her nose again. 

“Well O, I think you’re gonna have a black eye.”

“Perfect.”

Raven tries to hide a smile.

“What?”

“The reporters ask you ‘How’d you get a black eye?’ ‘Slipped in the tub.’” She laughs. 

“I didn’t slip, I fainted.”

“Still.”

Octavia tried not to let herself laugh, but Raven’s giggling is infectious. They eventually stop laughing and Raven kisses her forehead.

“Ow.”

“Sorry. Here, hold this a second," She says, putting Octavia's hand over the towel on her nose. Raven wipes the blood off her shoulder, where it had dripped down. She groans as she gets up and Octavia can tell her hip is bothering her from the position she had been in. Raven grabs a clean towel to dry her off and Octavia suddenly starts laughing again. 

“What?”

“You’re soaked.”

Raven looks down at her clothes and smirks.

They're a little worried when her bloody nose persists, but it eventually stops and they get her out of the tub and into bed. 

The next morning, under her eye is dark purple and it’s a struggle to open it all the way. The trial keeps going on, but Octavia mostly zones out for it. She moves about the days like a robot taking commands, going where people tell her to, eating when she’s told, going to sleep when the lights are turned out. She can’t let herself actually process the way the forensic officers think Emerson killed Roma. (They think she died of an infection from her miscarriage.) She can’t think about the bullshit excuses the defense attorney comes up with to try to justify what Emerson had done (he’s mentally ill, he’s a product of his upbringing, he didn’t understand what he was doing was wrong). She knows it’s all going to catch up with her at some point, but she can’t let herself deal with it yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. She made it through the cross-examination at least. How do you think she'll respond when she finally processes everything that's happened at the trial?


	24. Chapter 24

On Saturday, Octavia rests, watches TV mindlessly and folds the clothes that Raven pulls from the drier. It feels good to help with some of the housework but she’s still fried from the trial. 

On Sunday, she goes to the stable to ride Helios again. It’s warm enough that she meets Lincoln at a corral outside the pole barn. 

“Hey!” 

“Hey Lincoln.”

“What happened to your eye?”

Octavia rolls her eyes. “Passed out in the shower.”

“Ah.”

Octavia puts on her helmet and rolls up next to Helios. 

“Ready?”

She nods and he picks her up out of her wheelchair and lifts her onto Helios. She helps a little more than the last time, and waits a second, leaning over the horse’s neck for a moment before rising up to allow her blood pressure to adjust. 

“Your posture looks stronger than the last time.”

“It’d better. Indra’s had me doing all kinds of core exercises in PT.”

“It shows.”

Octavia takes the reins from Lincoln and clicks her tongue. Helios responds and starts into a working walk. The trees in the distance have leaves starting to sprout again, and the air smells like spring. Octavia shuts her eyes for a moment, wanting to take in the moment. 

When she opens her eyes again, she sees Raven standing on the first rail of the fence, talking with Lincoln as they watch her ride.

“Think I can trot?” She has to raise her voice for them to hear her across the corral.

“Only one way to find out,” Raven says.

“Just be careful.”

She smiles at Lincoln’s concern and clicks her tongue, squeezing her legs against Helios’s sides. He speeds up, taking a moment to transition into a trot. Octavia tries posting, a move where the rider stands up in their stirrups and lowers down to the saddle in time with the trot. It makes the pace easier for the horse and rider, but it’s too close to standing and she can feel her heart rate rapidly increasing. She hopes maybe it will pass, but then the world appears to be tilting strangely and she hears roaring in her ears. She lets out a shaky exhale, then says “woah,” and pulls on the reins. Helios slows and Octavia puts a hand to her forehead, wincing as her hearing starts to go and blackness starts approaching from the periphery. She leans down so she’s hugging Helios’s neck and suddenly Lincoln is at her side, easing her off. 

“Okay, you can let go, I’ve got you,” Lincoln says, and she feels herself collide with his chest. She doesn’t completely lose consciousness, but that feels worse than just fainting. She’s sweaty and feels like she can’t get enough air.

She can half-hear Raven approaching with her uneven gait. 

“She needs to lay down with her feet higher than her heart,” Raven says. 

“Okay. Can you get Helios hitched to the fence?”

“Yup.”

Lincoln carries her somewhere and lays her down on what she assumes is the grass. He holds her legs up in the air and they’re quiet for a little while. Octavia opens her eyes, trying to focus her vision. She’s still struggling for breath. 

“How’re you doing, O?”

“I feel like shit.”

Raven has a pulse oximeter that was in Octavia’s bag. She sticks it on Octavia’s finger.

“No wonder. Your heart rate’s 120 laying down.”

“Ugh.”

Raven unbuckles her helmet and takes it off so she can lay more comfortably. 

“You want some water, love?”

“I’m good.”

“Okay.”

It’s a half hour before she can sit up without starting to black out again. They finally get her into her wheelchair and Raven pushes her to the car, Lincoln following behind.

“Sorry things didn’t work out for you today. I’m sure you’ll get there.”

Octavia nods.

“Can I give you a hug?”

She nods and holds up an arm to hug him back.

Octavia feels like crying on the way home, but the tears don’t come. She had been hoping riding would make her feel better, but it had just reminded her how much her life is affected by what Emerson had done to her. 

  
  
  


The trial continues for almost 4 weeks but she’s not required to be there in person for all of it. Octavia goes to therapy, attends PT, eats, sleeps, and tries not to think. She constantly has the TV or something on her iPad playing to keep her from thinking about the trial Then on a Wednesday, they get a call from Lexa. Anya answers it since Octavia still doesn’t have a phone and Raven is at work.

“Really? Wow. Okay, I’ll let her know. Alright, bye.”

Octavia looks up. She had been watching a documentary on the Potawatomi Native Americans who had owned the land their suburb is now on. Reading still takes a lot effort for her. She gets distracted easily and gets headaches if she reads too long. But she can watch documentaries without the same problems, so she’s taken to watching documentaries related to different cultures and languages. It’s nice to feel like she has something from her college days she can connect to again. 

“O, that was Lexa. Emerson pleaded guilty today. They’re gonna sentence him later, but he can’t retract this. It’s done.”

“Oh. That… that’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what charges he plead guilty to?”

“No. Lexa didn’t say. She said he’ll for sure be sentenced to life in prison.”

“Okay.” She tries to focus on her documentary again, but her mind keeps drifting.

That evening, Raven brings sparkling cider and cheesecake home to celebrate the trial being over. Bellamy comes over and they all toast to moving on. Octavia wonders if she’ll be able to do that. It feels like this can’t be real. She can’t have spent 4 years of her life in this man’s clutches plus nine months recovering just for it to be done like this.

  
  
  


After Bellamy leaves, Raven and Anya start cleaning up their dishes while Octavia goes to the bathroom to shower. Anya is just getting ready to leave when she and Raven hear a  _ thunk _ , then a crash of shattering glass from the bathroom. They look at each other and hurry to the bathroom. Hyperion is whining and pawing at the door. Raven had removed the lock from the door so she’s able to open it without trouble. Octavia is inside, hurling items from the counter at the floor and shower wall. Some of them merely clatter as they‘re thrown, but there’s a few glass bottles that shatter with satisfying cacophony. She’s shouting wordlessly with each throw. Hyperion carefully goes to face her and puts his head on her knees. She ignores him and he doesn’t put his paws up like he would if he were trying to stop a flashback or anxiety attack. He seems to understand this is something different. Something  _ needed _ .

Anya looks at Raven. “Should we--”

Raven shakes her head. There isn’t much left on the counter for her to throw. Frankly, this is the most  _ Octavia _ thing she’s done since she’s been home. She’s always had a temper. And the fact is, this is the first time she’s really shown anger since coming home. 

When she throws the last of the bottles from the counter, she finally starts using words.

“He stole my life! He stole my future!”

Raven could argue, tell her about how she’s still got a future and they can build a life. But she knows that wouldn’t really be helpful. Instead, she says “I know.”

“He ruined my body! Turned it from something I was proud of into something I can’t stand to look at!”

“I know.”

“He stole my ability to be a mother. Even if my body could handle it, my stupid brain couldn’t!”

“I’m so sorry.”

“He took EVERYTHING!” Her voice is so loud, Raven wonders if the neighbors will call the police. 

“I know.”

Octavia lets out a great wail and then dissolves into sobs. Hyperion takes this opportunity to hop his front paws onto her lap and lean forward to lick her face. She moves her hand so she can touch his curly ears and rub his soft nose. Raven carefully moves around the mess and kneels to check Hyperions paws, making sure he didn’t get cut by any of the glass on his way over. When she’s done checking, Octavia pats her lap and the dog leaps up so he’s fully on her lap. She buries her face in his side and continues to cry and cry. It continues for almost 2 hours and Raven is shocked Octavia hasn’t worn out. 

During that time, Raven carefully wipes up shards of glass and spilled lotion and perfume with paper towels and places the unharmed bottles together in a cluster on the floor. She eventually sends Anya home but stays close to Octavia. The sobbing woman looks exhausted, almost like the crying is paining her.Raven kneels down next to her.

“O, you’ve been crying a long time. Do you wanna take something?”

She’s quiet for a minute except for sniffles, then nods.

“Okay. Ativan or Valium?” Raven holds out her hands to indicate the two choices. Octavia taps the right one, indicating Valium. 

“Alright. Why don’t you start getting your pajamas on and I’ll grab it?”

Octavia points to the floor and Hyperion jumps down from her lap. She goes to the bedroom and grabs her pajamas. When she pulls off her top, though, she freezes, looking at her scarred abdomen. Raven comes in after a minute.

“How’s it going?”

She doesn’t answer and Raven can see her studying every mark and irregularity on her stomach. 

“Here, you must be cold.” Raven takes Octavia’s pajama top from the bed and pulls it over her head. Octavia sticks her arms in and Raven helps her off with her pants and on with her pajama pants. 

“Valium and night meds,” she says, handing her a little cup full of pills and a glass of water. Octavia downs them all in a gulp and they go back to the bathroom. Octavia stares at the bottles on the bathroom floor and the full trash can. 

“That trial was a lot, wasn’t it?”

She nods and starts crying anew, burying her face in her hands. Hyperion climbs on her lap again, licking her hands and face. 

“I guess everything’s been a lot for a long time.”

She nods emphatically, squeezing her eyes shut as a sob makes her chest heave. Raven gives her a minute.

“I’m not gonna say everything’s okay, because I know it’s not. You take as long as you need to process all of this, okay? And I will be here. Just please let me know if I can do anything to help or if you’re feeling unsafe. Is that a reasonable ask?”

Octavia nods.

“Okay.” Raven hands her a makeup wipe to take off what the crying had left and then they both brush their teeth. 

“Do you wanna try and actually shower?”

She shakes her head. 

“Okay. You get in bed while I take Hyperion out.”

Raven takes Hyperion outside and then puts him in his crate for the night. They’re at the point in his training that he could sleep in their bed with them, but they’re still sleeping in one of the twin beds, and there really isn’t room for the growing dog. Raven’s been wanting to ask Octavia if she’d be okay with bringing back the queen-size bed. She doesn’t want to move too quickly, so she hasn’t mentioned it, even though they’ve been sharing a bed for a few weeks. When she gets into the bedroom, Octavia is in bed, eyelids heavy. She looks like she’s finally calming down, but it’s the drugged kind of calm that Raven hates because she knows it makes Octavia feel and act completely unlike herself. 

Raven unstraps her brace, gets on her pajamas, and slips into bed next to her.

“I’m so proud of you, O. I love you.”

Octavia scootches so her forehead is against Raven’s shoulder. Raven gently scratches her back until Octavia grabs her arm, stilling it.

“Do you want me to stop touching you?”

She shakes her head.

“Just stop scratching your back?”

She nods. 

“Okay.” Raven holds her till they both fall asleep. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trial is finally over! Let’s hope O and Raven can finally find some normalcy! What are your hopes for Octavia’s future?


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and supporting this story!

In the morning, Octavia stays in bed while Raven gets ready and goes to work. Anya lets her sleep for several hours, but then it’s getting late to take some of her morning meds. 

“O, time to get up.”

There’s no answer from the bed.

“Octavia,” she says louder.

Still nothing. 

A pang of worry hits Anya and she pulls back the covers. Octavia is staring at the wall. Anya picks up one arm, then the other to check for marks or cuts. There are none. When she lets go of her arms, Octavia curls to hug herself and shuts her eyes. Anya knows the meds are still safely locked away so there’s no chance Octavia has ODed. 

“O, talk to me.”

She lets out a little sigh but doesn’t say anything. 

“Are you sick?”

No response. Anya checks Octavia’s forehead, then her pulse on her neck. She flinches at the touch but doesn’t otherwise react. Anya finds both her temperature and pulse normal. 

“You don’t have to get up. I just need you to take your meds and eat a little something so you can keep them down. I can bring it to you.”

Anya brings a glass of water, a granola bar, and a little bowl of pills for her. Octavia’s eyes are open but she won’t look at her. 

“Here, can you sit up?”

Octavia reluctantly does so, and Anya puts another pillow behind her so she’s more upright. Anya proffers the granola bar, which she’d unwrapped, till Octavia takes it. She eats it and takes the pills with a gulp of water, then stares absently into her lap.

“Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do?”

Octavia slides down in bed, tugs out the extra pillow under herself, and pulls the covers over herself again. She doesn’t seem angry or that anxious; more dazed and distant. 

“Alright. I’m going to let Hyperion come in here if that’s alright with you. Then I’ll let you rest.”

She opens the door and Hyperion rushes in. He whines by the bedside till Octavia reaches a hand out of the covers and pats the bed, and then hops up and curls against her covered form, laying down. Anya hopes that this will bring her out of whatever this is. She leaves the door open and peeks in on Octavia about every hour. In the meantime, she reads a book and scrolls on her phone and around 12:30 makes a plate with some apple slices, cheese sticks and ham rolls.

“O, I’ve got some lunch here and your lunch meds.”

Octavia doesn’t move.

“I put an Ativan in the cup. I wasn’t sure if you would want it, so feel free to take it or leave it.”

There’s no answer, so she leaves the plate and the cup of pills on the bedside table. 

“Alright, I”m leaving it here for you.”

She leaves the room, wondering if she should text Raven. She decides it can wait. Nothing’s exactly wrong, it’s just… well, maybe something is wrong. But when Anya thinks about the amount of trauma Octavia has had to relive over the past month and a half, she can’t blame Octavia for shutting down. Maybe she just needs a break from everything. Anya decides to wait till Raven comes home to say anything.

When she checks back an hour later, the food and meds are untouched. Besides the ativan is an optional med that Octavia takes for her POTS, but it really isn’t needed if she’s laying down so Anya doesn’t push it. She does check under the covers twice that afternoon to make sure Octavia is okay. She’s not quite sure what else to do. Even when she lifts the covers, Octavia just lays there listlessly, sometimes staring at nothing, sometimes eyes shut. .

Octavia ends up staying in bed all day. Hyperion comes out and paws at the bells they have hanging on the door for Anya to let him out late in the afternoon. When they come back in from that, it’s almost 5pm. Anya comes into the bedroom and sits down on the bed. 

“Hey, Raven’s gonna be home soon. Anything I can get you?”

She’s silent.

“Alright.”

  
  


When Raven gets home, Anya looks at her and she can tell something’s up. 

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Um, kinda hard to say, honestly.”

“What’s wrong? Where’s O?”

“She hasn’t gotten out of bed. She’s been nonverbal all day.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that outburst yesterday really took it out of her.”

“Do we need to get Dr. Diyoza in on this?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. That trial was awful for her. The last 8 months have been so hard. Honestly, I think she just needs a break.”

Raven nods. “Okay, I trust your judgement.”

“Give it a couple of days; we’ll make sure she eats, takes her meds, and gets to the bathroom. If she’s still not talking, we’ll bring it up with Diyoza then. ”

“Okay.”

Anya leaves and Raven goes into the bedroom and pulls off her brace and pants, sliding into bed next to Octavia. 

“Hey.”

Octavia doesn’t respond. 

“I’m here. You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know I’m here.”

After a minute, she reaches a hand to touch her shoulder, but Octavia tenses, breath hitching. 

“Sorry,” Raven says, pulling her hand back. “I uh… I hear you’ve been in bed all day.”

She hears rustling, and for a second thinks it’s Octavia. But then Hyperion’s head pops up. He makes his way down to the foot of the bed and hops off, wagging his tail and looking at her.

“You hungry, buddy?” She gets up. “O, I’m going to get Hyperion outside and fed and make us some dinner. I’ll bring it in when it’s ready.” She shimmies back on her pants and straps her brace on. Hyperion follows her out to the hallway and she grabs a ball and brings him out to the dog park area. She tosses the ball for him for several minutes. It’s important for him to get exercise, especially when he’s spending most of the day stagnant. 

When they come inside, she puts some fresh food and water in Hyperion’s bowls and turns on the oven. It’s weird making dinner by herself. It feels like when Octavia was missing and she starts to get a stomach ache just from the memory. She sticks a frozen pizza in the oven and puts together a spinach salad. When it’s ready, she brings in a plate for Octavia. 

“Hey O, I’ve got dinner.”

There’s no response from under the covers. 

“I’ll just leave it here.”

Raven leaves it and goes back out to eat in the living room. When she comes back in the room an hour and a half later, the food is still untouched.

“Not hungry, huh? That’s okay.” She’s silent for a minute. “I was thinking you might need to get up and pee before bed. I could help you up if you need… or you could go on your own. But I really don’t want you to get a UTI or anything, so it’s probably a good idea to get up one way or the other.”

She doesn’t move.

“Alright, I’ll just go do some dishes.”

She goes to the kitchen and puts away some of the clean dishes from the dishwasher, when she hears the bathroom door close. She breathes a sigh of relief. Something is getting through to Octavia. She just needs some time.

That night, she gets ready for bed and looks over to Octavia’s form under the covers.

“I’ll just plan to sleep in the other bed unless you let me know otherwise.”

There’s no response.

“Um, I’m going to put your night meds here with some water. It’d be really good if you took them.”

Octavia doesn’t move but when Raven wakes up in the morning, the pills are gone, so she must have taken them sometime after Raven fell asleep. 

The next day is the same. Anya comes over. Octavia eats a granola bar and takes her morning meds. She stays in bed all day, except for one trip to the bathroom in the afternoon. She refuses lunch or her midday meds, but does end up eating a few bites of dinner, which is a Mexican rice dish with lots of veggies and chicken. Raven smiles to see some of the bowl of food gone when she gets the dish and brings it back to the sink. 

“I’m glad you could eat some.”

The next day is the same too. They’ve checked to make sure Octavia is physically okay but the most she moves is to turn in bed and get up once to go to the bathroom. That evening, as Raven is getting ready for bed, she talks to Octavia.

“Love, I wanted to let you know that I’m going to call Dr. Diyoza tomorrow. That’s not a threat, I just wanted to let you know. I’m not planning to send you to inpatient or anything like that before trying some stuff here. But I’m getting worried. Especially about you not eating much, but also not talking or getting out of bed, or taking care of yourself. I understand if you can’t right now. But could you try your best? Maybe you already are. But if you’re not, please try your best. You’ve come such a long way. I know you can come out of this.”

There’s no response. Raven hopes that something connected with Octavia but there’s no way to tell. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you think they should’ve already called Dr Diyoza? Do you think Octavia will come out of this on her own?


	26. Chapter 26

The next day is Saturday. They both sleep in, and Raven makes oatmeal pancakes. She knows they’re Octavia’s favorite breakfast food and she hopes maybe the scent will coax her out of bed. Unfortunately it doesn’t. After turning the griddle off, she goes into the bedroom and opens the shade. It’s the beginning of May, and it’s warm enough that she opens the window to let some fresh air in. She sets a plate of pancakes on the bedside table next to Octavia’s bed and slips into her own bed with another plate.

“O, I made oatmeal buttermilk pancakes. They’re reaaally good.”

She hopes Octavia will at least try them but there’s no response from the pile of blankets. Raven eats her pancakes, but it doesn’t feel right without Octavia hogging the syrup bottle and absolutely drenching her pancakes in syrup. 

“Octavia… I’m really worried about you. Can you please try to eat something? I know you’re having a hard time right now. And I’m sorry. I wish I could make it better. But I don’t think it’s going to get better if you keep laying in bed and not eating.”

“It’s hard.” Her voice is muffled under the covers. 

Raven looks up, excited that Octavia said something.

“Is there anything I can do to make it easier?”

“No.” She peeks the top of her head out, but doesn’t look at Raven. 

“I’m glad to hear you talking again. You obviously don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but what’s been going on in your head the last few days?”

It’s been too hard to talk.”

“Were you thinking about the trial?”

She shakes her head. “It’s like everything just… shut down.”

Raven nods.

“Would you want to try and get up? Maybe take a shower?”

She lets out a long, slow breath. Clearly she’s not enthused by the idea. 

“I could help. If you want.”

For the first time in days, Octavia’s gaze meets hers for a second. “Okay.”

“Okay. You get in your chair, I’ll grab some clothes for you.”

When Octavia sits up, she gets pale and breathes heavily.

“POTS acting up?”

She nods, feeling her heart pound rapidly in her chest. After a couple of minutes, she starts moving again. She gets into the wheelchair and Raven comes to her side.

“Want a push? Or do you wanna do it yourself?”

“Maybe a push.”

“Okay.”

Raven gets her to the bathroom, helps her undress and runs the water, then pauses, looking down at herself.

“Um, I can help you wash your hair if you want. I don’t know how tired you are.”

Octavia nods.

“Are you… okay if I just take off my clothes too?”

Octavia nods again.

“Okay.”

They get in the shower, which is barely big enough for the two of them plus Octavia’s bulky shower chair. Raven stands behind her and runs her hands through Octavia’s short hair as she shampoos it, then uses the handheld sprayer to wash the lather out. Octavia’s eyes are shut. She looks relaxed. Raven runs conditioner through her hair.

“O, do you want me to wash your body?“

“You don’t have to...”

“I know. I just thought it might be nice. But if you’re uncomfortable—“

“You don’t have to pretend,” she says, looking at the ground. 

“Pretend what?”

“That you’re not disgusted by my body.”

Raven looks down in surprise.

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not disgusted by you.”

“You threw up. When you first saw me in the hospital; saw what he did to me.”

“You were awake then?”

“One of the nurses was talking about it. I overheard.”

“I wasn’t disgusted by you. I was overwhelmed at what had happened. Yeah, I was overwhelmed by what he had done to you; to someone I love. I wasn’t thinking “gross.” I was thinking ‘oh god, someone hurt her. How has she coped with all this?’”

The water runs over them for a while. Octavia takes the loofa from the hook on the wall and hands it back to Raven. Raven scrubs the loofa on her bar of soap and washes Octavia’s back. She looks at the scars, thick indents from Emerson whipping her.  _ Is she disgusted by them? No,  _ she decides.  _ She’s sad and angry at what they mean, the hurt under all her scars. But she’s not disgusted by the scars.  _

They’re both trying not to make a big deal about this, but it’s the most intimately Raven’s been able to touch her. She’s washed pretty much every non-erogenous zone there is. The only things that are left are areas that could potentially send Octavia into a panic attack or catatonic episode. Raven moves slowly, giving Octavia ample time to stop her, but doesn’t linger. Octavia takes a slightly shaky breath.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She looks up into Raven’s eyes to prove it.

And after a few moments, it’s over and they’re okay. Raven turns the tap off after a final rinse and wraps a towel around Octavia’s shoulders. She dries herself off efficiently and then dries Octavia off. 

“I’m gonna grab you some clothes. Do you want day clothes or pajamas?”

“Pajamas.”

“Okay.”

Raven helps Octavia change and they go out to the couch. Raven grabs some of the pancakes she had made earlier and warms them up for Octavia, who’s swathed in a blanket. When she brings them over, Octavia sighs, putting her head on her knees. 

“Why do you and Anya push me so hard to eat? It’s like you’re obsessed.”

“O, we saw you when you were 87 lbs. We never want to see that again. It was terrifying. You were so tiny and fragile.”

“That’s how he wanted me. Tiny and fragile like a child. Fucking pedophile couldn’t get past the idea that I was an actual adult.”

Raven feels sick at the new understanding. “I’m so sorry. But... doesn’t that motivate you to eat?”

“I don’t know any more ways to tell you that it hurts when I eat,” she snaps.

“Okay. “

Octavia scowls and puts her hand out for the plate and Raven gives it to her. Hyperion comes over and waits for her to invite him onto the couch. She does, and he curls up next to her, putting his head in her lap. She eats in silence for a few minutes. 

“Sorry I’m so irritable,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“It’s okay.”

“That trial was… It brought it all back.”

Raven holds out her hand on the couch and Octavia takes it.

“You’ve missed a couple of appointments this week with Niylah. I think it’d be good for you to see her on Monday.”

Octavia nods. 

“And we’ve got that trip to a cabin next weekend. Are you still up for that?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good, I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

“There’s a hot tub at the cabin. I was thinking we should get you a new swimsuit. Your old one would fall right off you.”

She nods. 

“Do you wanna try one on or just pick something online?”

“Let’s do online.”

“Okay.”

Octavia ends up picking a simple black tankini top and boyshorts. They’re considerably more conservative than anything she would’ve chosen before she was abducted, but Raven is just happy she’s willing to get a swimsuit; Octavia hasn’t worn anything but long sleeves and pants since she came home from the hospital. 

Octavia is still pretty quiet and down for several days, but she’ll at least get up for meals and talk a bit. Anya is relieved on Monday to find Octavia out of bed and interacting again. 

That week Octavia goes to see Niylah 3 times. The first day most of the session is quiet. Niylah had asked her about the trial and the feelings it may have brought up.

“He pleaded guilty last week. I kinda shut down for a few days there. It’s still hard to talk or do things.”

“Why do you think that is?”

She sits with her head in her hands for such a long time, Niylah wonders if she’s asleep. 

“I… I don’t know.”

“Hmm. It seems to me like that trial would’ve been very emotionally draining. Even when you didn’t have to be there in person, I’m sure it was weighing on your mind. I wonder if Emerson pleading guilty gave you the freedom to start to process just how hard the trial was.”

Octavia nods. “I threw a bunch of stuff in the bathroom that night. I was just so angry at everything. And then I started crying and couldn’t stop. I had to take Valium. And the next morning I just… couldn’t deal with anything. Talking, getting out of bed…”

“My guess is that you couldn’t process all the emotions 

you were experiencing. It’s closure to the most traumatic experiences of your life. I’m surprised you’ve done as well as you have with everything. Surprised isn’t the right word; impressed.”

“Thanks.”

They sit in silence for a while.

“Raven and I are going to a cabin this weekend.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nods. 

“What will you do there?”

“I don’t know. Relax, maybe read some. I don’t know if she’s… expecting anything. I mean, I know she won’t be mad if I’m not ready… but I think she hopes I might be ready.”

“Hmmm. Do you think you’re ready?”

“I don’t know.”

“How much physical contact have you had with her since that incident a few months ago?”

“We’ve been sharing a bed and snuggling. I couldn’t when I shut down last week but we’re back to sharing again now. We showered together this weekend and she helped me.”

“How was that?”

“Okay, I guess. I kind of ruined it.”

“How so?”

“I thought she was grossed out by my body.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well… why wouldn’t she be? I’ve got all these scars… stretch marks… my skin is usually blotchy because of my POTS. My body is—” She’s silent for a while.

“What were you going to say?

“I… was going to say my body is disgusting and broken.”

“Do you believe that about yourself?”

“I think so.”

“Do you believe that about Monroe?”

“What? No. No, they’ve got their whole life ahead of them.”

“So why are you different?”

“I was there longer. I almost had a child.”

“If 10 months of abuse didn’t diminish Monroe’s worth, why would four years of it diminish yours? They also have scars and lost a lot of weight from Emerson’s treatment.”

“I… I don’t know. I guess it’s not rational. It’s just how I feel.”

“I would say it’s more of a thought than a feeling. I would encourage you not to accept that thought. Just like some of the others when we’ve talked about mindfulness, you can decide whether or not to accept that thought or say ‘that’s just a thought,’ and let it pass by.”

“You make it seem like that’s an easy thing to do.”

“I know it’s not easy. But it seems like you’re hanging onto that thought pretty tightly. Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know.”

They sit in silence for a little while.

“I guess maybe… I feel like I have some sort of control over something if I believe myself to be… unworthy or gross or whatever. It means I don’t have to think about my fear or pain related to being physically close to Raven. If I’m gross, then I can hold her at a distance for that reason instead of because I’m scared or angry or sad.”

Niylah nods.

“I realize that the idea of body positivity and self love isn’t probably where you’re at right now.”

Octavia snorts and shakes her head.

“What I’d encourage you toward is something called body neutrality. Instead of ‘my body is beautiful,’ which you may not be ready to say, you could try, ‘my body is just a body. My body, regardless of its functioning, ability, or scars, is not related to my worth or how much I should be loved.’”

Octavia nods.

“You’re not always in control of what thoughts pop into your head, but you can choose which ones you believe. It seems like your current thought patterns aren’t serving you well. You’ve said in the past that you want to have a physical relationship with Raven at some point.”

“I do.”

“I think that if you want to be comfortable with someone else accepting and loving your body, you will need to start to change the thoughts you believe about It.”

Octavia nods again. It’s a lot to think about and even more to put into practice, but the idea of body neutrality sounds a lot more achievable than anything like body positivity. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	27. Chapter 27

Friday morning, Raven and Octavia pack up the car for their trip. They have to bring a bunch of meds for Octavia--she’s still on almost 30 pills a day-- as well as a shower stool, gear for Hyperion, and their normal suitcases. The cabin is a few hours away and they spend the car ride listening to music and singing and looking at the scenery. 

They get to the cabin, one of a few in a little resort on a lake, and bring their things inside. Hyperion is fascinated by the sights and smells. He’s off duty, so Raven puts him on the long leash and lets him explore outside while she and Octavia sit on the porch and look out at the lake.

“It’s really pretty out here.”

“I thought you’d like it. Monty, Jasper, Gina and I came out here 2 summers ago.”

“I haven’t heard you talk much about Gina lately.”

“Yeah. She still comes to game nights, but she’s gotten super into her new boyfriend. He’s all she talks about.”

“Ah. That can be a lot.”

“Yeah.”

Octavia looks at her with a curious expression.

“What?”

“Did you… did you date at all while I was gone?”

“What? No.”

“Why not?”

“Why would I? I loved you. The first two years I was just focused on finding you. The next two years I was trying to accept that you might really be gone forever. You were… it for me. All I wanted. Still all I want.”

Octavia smiles and looks down. Raven’s hand comes to gently rest on her cheek and she looks up into her eyes.

“I love you, O.”

“Love you too. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

Raven leans in and kisses her and Octavia smiles, kissing her back. 

For lunch, they make sandwiches and have a picnic out on the lawn in front of the cabin. Octavia gets down from her wheelchair and sits on the blanket with Raven, Hyperion’s head in her lap. 

Later that afternoon, they leave Hyperion in his crate in the cabin and borrow a two-person kayak. It’s quite a process getting Octavia safely in without her passing out, but they somehow manage it. Raven actually has a fair amount of trouble getting in safely with her hip and they almost tip in two feet of water, but somehow avoid it. They paddle out to an area across the lake with lots of reeds and lily pads. They watch little fish swim around and dragonflies land on the lily pads to warm themselves in the sun. 

“So Rae, I‘ve been thinking, and I want to take my driver’s test and get a license again.”

“Oh. Wow, I hadn’t really thought about that.”

“I mean, I don’t pass out when I’m sitting down. And I thought at some point maybe I’d want to drive somewhere. Or maybe at some point I can come off some of my meds and actually have my first legal drink.”

“Yeah. That totally makes sense. You figure out when one is and Anya or I can bring you.”

“I also want to work on some of my executive dysfunction. I want to go back to OT or maybe a speech-language pathologist and get better at organizing and remembering things.”

“That sounds awesome, hon.”

“I just… don’t wanna get stuck. Like, I don’t want the rest of my life to be hanging out at home. I wanna do more.”

Raven nods earnestly. 

“Is there something you picture yourself doing?”

“I don’t know. It depends on how well I can organize and manage myself. I’d really love to get a part time job in something related to anthropology or linguistics. I mean, I know I didn’t quite finish my degrees, but some jobs don’t require that. I mean… I know I’m not ready for that right now. But maybe in a few years I could be.”

“I love that idea.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s… it’s so good to hear you thinking and dreaming and planning for the future.”

“Yeah. I can finally picture myself in it.”

Raven nods.

  
  
  


They get back to the cabin and Raven pan fries some fish while Octavia makes coleslaw. She keeps forgetting things, but luckily it’s a low stakes recipe that she can’t screw up too badly. 

That evening, Raven sets the temperature of the hot tub so it’s lukewarm. One trigger for Octavia’s POTS is heat, so they have to keep the water temperate if they don’t want her to pass out or just feel really crummy with a high heart rate. 

When Raven has finished the dishes, it’s time for them to put their swimsuits on. Raven has a red bikini that she must’ve bought sometime while Octavia was gone. She looks absolutely stunning and Octavia actually stutters when she speaks to her.

“You look am-mazing.”

Raven smiles at her as she straps back on her brace after changing. 

“You want some help changing?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

“Okay. Should I meet you outside?”

She nods. 

Octavia pulls off her pants and underwear and slips on the boyshorts of her two-piece swimsuit. Hyperion is right beside her, and she’s sure he can tell she’s a little tense. She pulls off her shirt and bra and looks down, body freezing when her eyes run across some of the scars on her stomach. Hyperion is suddenly in front of her, nudging her knees with his nose and trying to lick her hands. She takes a deep breath and pulls the tankini top on. She wants to just go outside, but something makes her go to the full length mirror instead. The first thing she sees are her knees with their long surgical scars. Hyperion gets in front of her, blocking her view of them. He’s nudging against her knees again. She looks up and her eyes catch on some of the burn scars visible on her sternum. Maneuvering her wheelchair so she’s turned to the side, she can see that many of her worst scars, the ones marring her back, are visible with this swimsuit on. She lifts her hand and feels the scars, staring intently at her reflection. Hyperion noses against her knees and she startles and drops her hand. She notices the long scar down her left wrist from her suicide attempt and feels the slightly bumpy, discolored skin from repeated abrasions on her wrists when she had been cuffed to the bed in Emerson’s basement. The scarring isn’t that noticeable, but the skin is still sensitive. She wishes she had bought a long sleeved rash guard to hide all of this from herself. She had thought about telling Raven she wanted one when they had shopped for swimsuits but knew it would make Raven sad, so she didn’t. Suddenly, Hyperion is at eye level with her, licking her face.

“Okay, okay. I get it.” She takes one more look in the mirror and unconfidently, almost sarcastically thinks,  _ my body does not make me less worthy.  _ She’s pretty sure she doesn’t believe that yet, but she hopes maybe someday she will. Octavia finally wheels herself out to the back deck where the hot tub is. Raven gives a relieved smile to see her.

“Come on in, the water is barely warm,” she says with a joking smile.

“I think i might need some help since it’s so high.”

“Sure.”

Raven gets up and unsteadily makes her way to her towel to dry off, then pulls her brace on. If she’s just going a short distance, she can sort of get by not wearing the brace, but since she’s helping Octavia, she wants to make sure she’s steady on her feet.

“Do you wanna to try standing and climbing up or do you want me to lift you?”

“Um… I guess stand and climb. I’ve gotten up to standing for almost 5 minutes in PT, so I don’t think a stand will be too much as long as I go slow.”

“Okay.”

Raven holds her hands out as a support for Octavia to hold onto as she stands to her feet. She takes a second, eyes unfocusing as body adjusts to the position change, before she collects herself and grabs onto the side of the hot tub platform. She uses her arms—which have become decently strong with all her wheelchair maneuvering, transfers, and PT—to push herself up to sit on the edge of the platform, then pauses, breathing heavily. Raven stands in front of her in case she passes out, but after a moment she looks up and pulls her legs up, putting them in the water.

“You’re right, this water _ is _ barely warm.”

“Hey, excuse me if I don’t want to worry about my girlfriend passing out in the hot tub.”

Octavia smiles and moves herself forward, stepping deeper into the hot tub and letting the water come up to her chest. She can’t help but notice that much of her scarred sternum is above the water and she covers it with a hand, fingernails scraping against the scars, trying to find purchase.

“Hey,” Raven says, gently taking her hand and pulling it to her lips to kiss it and then give it a squeeze. Octavia wraps the hand around Raven’s shoulder and puts her other hand on the back of Raven’s head, pulling her to herself to kiss her. She lets herself focus in completely on kissing her, hearing her breath, feeling her hand wrap around Octavia’s back. It’s a mindful moment if she ever had one. When she pulls back, Raven is looking at her with such adoration in her eyes. 

“I’m so glad we could come up here.”

“Me too.”

  
  
  


The next morning is chilly and when Raven gets up at 7am, she wraps herself in a blanket and goes to turn the heater on in the main room of the cabin. She lets Hyperion out of his crate and he stretches and yawns before making his way to the door. Raven is infinitely grateful for the extra long leash they had packed, because it means she doesn’t have to go outside in the chilly morning air. When he comes back inside she scoops some food into his dish and puts fresh water in his bowl before hurrying back over to sit in front of the heater. Not long after, a shivering Octavia wheels out of the bedroom. 

“Come‘ere, baby.”

“Cold.”

“I know.” Raven extends a blanket wrapped arm and Octavia wheels to sit in front of her. Raven wraps the blanket around them both and rests her chin on Octavia’s shoulder. They sit for a while, letting the heater warm them and staring out at the still lake. It’s the comfortable kind of silence. After a while, Raven sighs. 

“You hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want cinnamon rolls or pancakes and bacon this morning?”

“Pancakes and bacon.”

“Okay. Could you set the table while I make the batter?”

“Sure.”

One of the ways Octavia’s executive functioning is impaired from her head injury (and possibly from her trauma) is in planning and organizing. Raven notices her going back to the same spots in the kitchen several times to get things instead of collecting them all at once. It’s probably because she’s focusing on each thing she needs to put on the table individually, rather than grouping them by “dishes” or “fridge things”. Raven wonders if she should try to help Octavia but decides not to, wanting to avoid her being frustrated. 

Besides the cup of pills Octavia has to take and her having to transfer carefully from her wheelchair to the dining room chair, the meal feels downright normal. It doesn’t feel exactly like their college days, they’ve both aged more than the years have passed. But there’s a sense of comfortable normalcy.

  
  


In the afternoon, when it gets almost to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, Raven and Octavia pack up and drive to a state park a half hour away that has some paved paths. Raven helps O on the biggest of the hills but most of the time she can push herself independently. Hyperion trots along beside them, focus on Octavia. She’s more anxious out in public when people see her. She had dressed in lightweight jogger pants and a tank top with a sweater. When they stop for a while to watch the river, Raven notices that Octavia’s forehead is shiny with sweat.

“Are you hot, hon?”

“I’m fine.”

“You know being too warm makes your tachycardia worse.” She lifts a hand to check Octavia’s pulse, but her girlfriend flinches away.

“Rae, can you just trust me? I’m warm, but I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

“If it was 90 degrees it might be a problem, but as is, I’m fine.”

Raven nods. “Sorry. I believe you.”

“Okay.”

Raven holds out her hand and Octavia takes it, nodding to acknowledge they can move on.

They watch the river some more in silence, then decide to keep going on the path. They enter a shady wooded area with moss and fallen branches. It’s like something out of a fairy tale. Raven points out a doe a fair distance into the woods and they stay quiet and still, watching it.

Toward the end of the path is an area where the river has been dammed up and falls in a waterfall into a small lake. 

“This is so beautiful,” Octavia says, staring dreamily at the waterfall. Raven is studying her face instead of the view.

“I thought you’d like this park. It reminded me of you when I came here before.”

Octavia smiles, glancing over at Raven.

“O, I feel so lucky to have you in my life. I wouldn’t be who I am today without you. You’ve brought so much joy to my life. You’re my person; my family.”

Octavia looks down, still smiling, but Raven slowly puts a hand to her face, turning her back to look at her.

“Octavia, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” Raven pulls a box out of her backpack and opens it, revealing a ring,

Octavia blinks a couple of times, trying to figure out if she heard right.

“Um… wow, uh, yeah. Yeah!”

“Yeah?”

Octavia nods and Raven pulls the ring out of the box and takes Octavia’s left hand, slipping the ring onto her finger. Octavia stares down at it. It’s a silver ring with two bands, one plain, one covered in small diamonds, wrapped around each other like vines. There’s a larger but not too large diamond in the to top it off.

“It’s, it’s beautiful. It’s perfect.” She looks up into Raven’s eyes. “You’re perfect.”

Raven smiles and leans in to kiss her for a long moment. Octavia is a little out of breath and dazed, but happy. 

“I brought us some sparkling cider,” Raven says, pulling out a bottle and some plastic flutes from her backpack.

“I was wondering why you wanted to haul that huge backpack. You sap.”

Raven grins and opens the bottle, pouring them both some cider.

“To us,” she says, raising a glass.

“To us.”

That evening as they get ready for bed, Raven notices Octavia fidgeting a lot and sees Hyperion signaling her and trying to distract her.

“You doing okay, hon?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess I’m kind of anxious but it’s manageable.”

“Do you wanna to talk about it?”

“Um, I guess… I’m just not sure… about your expectations tonight.”

“Expectations?”

“Like, in terms of intimacy.”

“Oh. I mean it hasn’t changed. I want you to be 100% on board with anything we do. If you feel like you want to try something, I’m game. If not, I’m totally fine too.” 

Octavia nods and looks down for a few moments.

“Um, I’m not ready for everything. But I think I wanna try something?”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Okay, um… there was something Luna suggested in therapy for down the road.”

“Okay.”

“It’s to help our physical closeness. If it sounds like too much, you can tell me. I know at least a while ago you were interested in getting more intimate, but your body was kind of reacting all on it’s own. So I asked Luna if she had any ideas we could potentially incorporate.”

“Okay.”

“So what she suggested is we doing explorative touch. But we start super innocuous. Like I explore and touch your hand. Just your hand, while we’re both relaxing, you can tell me when to stop. The next time, maybe you explore and touch my arm. It works from really innocent to as sexy or non-sexy as we want. “

“That... sounds good.”

“Yeah?”

She nods. 

“Okay. Do you want to try it tonight or another time?”

“Tonight.” She makes sure to make eye contact with Raven, letting her know she actually wants this, mind and body.

  
  


They negotiate their terms before. It will only be Octavia’s right arm to the shoulder. Nothing else yet. Either one of them can stop whenever. Raven just touches Octavia’s hand; traces the lines on it, maps it out. She runs her fingers up her arm and Octavia makes a high-pitched noise . Raven pulls her hand back, but Octavia is smiling. 

“That tickles.”

“Oh. Okay, you’re good?”

“Yeah.”

Octavia works hard not to flinch when Raven traces her wrist. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s an area that has a lot of trauma attached to it from when Emerson would pull her by the wrist to the bathroom. Or cuff her wrist to the bed. Or… She takes a deep breath and tries to think about what’s happening right now. How her body feels right now. She and Raven are completely clothed, Octavia in a tank top and pajama pants, Raven in a short, silky nightgown. She’s safe, no one is going to hurt her and she can stop this whenever she wants to. Raven traces her finger up to her shoulder, running it around the joint. Octavia’s tenses a little, but tries to keep her breathing even. Raven looks at her and she nods. It continues for a while longer till Raven is

not sure what else to do. She squeezes her hand and looks up at Octavia, who’s looking at her.

“How was that?”

“Okay. It felt nice.”

“Good.”

“Will you snuggle me?”

Raven nods and Octavia turns over and scoots so her back is pressed against her, reaching behind her to pull Raven’s arm over her.

“I can’t believe I get to marry you,” Octavia says wistfully. 

“Why?”

“I remember meeting you in college. You were so beautiful and sexy and smart. I was really intimidated at first.”

“I seem to recall you stuttering every time I talked to you when you worked at the front desk of our hall.”

“Yeah that sounds about right.”

“You know, I was crushing on you too, I was just dealing with it by being an asshole.”

Octavia nods, smiling. She pushes her head back toward Raven and she kisses Octavia’s temple and hair. It feels good and right and okay. And It feels like they’re finally breaking down some of the barriers that keep them from connecting. They fall asleep feeling each other breathe, Raven wrapped around Octavia and both feeling thankful for the love they share. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They needed some peace and some wins, so I decided to get give them both. Hopefully this one wasn’t too sappy. 
> 
> We’re wrapping up with this story—only around 2 or 3 to go! Thanks for reading. Writing this has been really rewarding for me.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y’all had happy holidays and you are safe and taking care of yourselves in light of recent events!

On the way home, Octavia and Raven start dreaming up wedding plans. They both want a small outdoor wedding. 

“I should tell Bellamy. Wait, does he know?”

Raven nods. “I called him last week.”

She dials the number and Bellamy picks up after a couple of rings.

“Hey O.”

“Hey big brother. We’ve got big news.”

“Yeah?”

“Raven proposed, and I said yes.”

“Oh thank god. That would have been an awkward weekend if you had said no.”

She snorts. “Aren’t you going to say congratulations?”

“Congrats! How’d she do it?”

“We were on a walk and we stopped at this really beautiful view.”

“Cool. How was the rest of your weekend?”

“It was great. It was such a pretty area and we really got a chance to relax and enjoy each others’ company.”

“Good, I’m glad. Maybe I’ll have to take Echo up there sometime.”

“Yeah, speaking of which, you _still_ have not introduced us except over Facetime. I want to meet her, Bell.”

“I know. You’re right. What are you guys doing next weekend?”

“I don’t think anything.”

Raven shakes her head.

“Why don’t I bring Echo over?”

“That sounds great.”

  
  


Raven and Octavia continue the explorative touch experimentation when they get home. Not every night. Octavia gets better about saying no when she’s too tired or not in the mood and Raven gets better about asking for what she wants and knowing Octavia will say no if she needs to. Sometimes it seems as though Octavia’s brain and her body want two different things, but she tries to listen to both of them; only when they’re in alignment does she say yes or ask if Raven wants to try something. It’s slow, but nice. Sometimes for either one of them it feels tantalizingly close to something more. But they’re both patient enough to stick with the process until Octavia is truly ready for more. 

  
  


That week, Octavia asks Anya to help set her up with a speech language pathologist to work on her executive functioning. They find one through the hospital system who is experienced in working with adults with brain injuries or strokes and set up an intake appointment in a couple of weeks. She also gets a driver’s manual to study up for her driving test. 

  
  


The next weekend, Bellamy brings Echo along with a portable fire pit and s’mores supplies. They spend the evening out on the patio and conversation comes easily to them. Echo seems tough and cool, but also adaptable and passionate. She’s exactly the kind of woman Octavia could see her brother ending up with, and she’s really happy for him. 

  
  


Emerson is finally sentenced a few weeks later. Octavia elects not to go to the sentencing and not to have a statement read, like Monroe is doing. She wants to move on. Emerson receives 432 years to life in prison. It’s not enough. Nothing could be enough. The worst part is that he’ll be eligible for parole in 35 years. He’ll be in his late seventies, so the likelihood of him committing a similar crime is slim, but Octavia is committed to attending the parole hearing and making sure he never sees the light of day again. She’s understandably off-kilter for some time following the sentencing. She has a few panic attacks in the days following, nightmares for weeks, and is quiet and distracted much of the time for longer. Raven does everything she can think of to help Octavia feel safe and supported. That includes suggesting letting Hyperion sleep in their bed to help with Octavia’s nightmares. The dog quickly picks up on when Octavia is having nightmares--even before she starts outwardly crying or screaming--and wakes her up by licking her face and barking quietly. He tries deep pressure at one point to try to calmly wake her up, but she freaks out at the weight on her and he backs off and goes back to the more successful strategies. The unfortunate thing about having him in their bed, is that the already cramped space now has Raven struggling not to fall out of bed. She finally decides to talk to Octavia about it, nervous she’ll be pushing her to a change she’s not ready for.

“Hey hon,” she says one night as they’re laying in bed.

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering… if you’d be ready for me to get the queen bed back out of storage. And then if you need to be alone in bed I could sleep on the floor or in the guest room.”

“I’m not going to make you sleep on the floor, Rae.”

“I would. If you wanted me here but not in bed with you, I’m totally willing to do that. It’s just… the twin is getting a little cramped now that Hyperion is joining us and getting bigger.”

Octavia nods. “Yeah, that’s fine. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

“It’s fine, sweetie.”

“Okay.” Octavia turns and gives Raven a kiss on her cheek, then her neck. 

  
  


A couple of weeks after the trial, they’re going about their day on a weekend, Raven doing her hair in the bathroom while Octavia makes a smoothie in the kitchen. Suddenly, Raven hears a shattering sound and a yelp from the kitchen and sprints toward the noise. She sees Octavia looking down at a mess of fruit smoothie and glass. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just dropped a glass.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, it’s just the glass. I’m fine.”

Raven is panting, heart racing in her ears.

“Um, are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah. I… I was just worried about you.” She looks down, unsure why she’s struggling to fend off tears.

“Rae…”

Raven shuts her eyes and turns her head away, lip quivering.

“Hey, let me get over there so I can hug you.”

Raven sniffles. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay to cry, honey.”

Raven melts into more tears and carefully steps over the broken glass to squat down and hug Octavia. The sitting woman gently rubs her back and lets her cry for a few minutes, then pulls back to look at her.

“What’s going on?” 

“I… I’m just so glad you’re here and safe and alive. I was so lonely without you. I… I was so scared and-- I think that trial and sentencing just reminded me how close I was to never seeing you again.”

Octavia nods and hugs her back to herself. 

“I’m here now. It’s okay. We’re both okay.”

Raven nods into her shoulder and cries a little longer before composing herself slightly and hissing as she gets up from the bad position on her hip. 

They clean up the mess and Raven is still kind of shaky.

“Hon, do you want to go snuggle in bed?”

Raven nods and leads the way into the bedroom, removing her brace and sitting on the edge of the queen bed she and Bellamy had hauled out of storage the day before. Octavia gets in the other side. To Raven’s surprise, she starts taking off her shirt and leggings 

“Should I… take my clothes off too?”

She nods. “If you want to.”

She quickly pulls off her jean shorts and tank top and rolls to lay down, watching Octavia finish pulling her shirt, leaving her in a grey sports bra and black boyshort underwear. Octavia turns and pushes her feet under the covers, reaching for Raven’s shoulders and pulling herself to her, their bodies pressing together. Raven finds her eyes tearing up again and she sighs shakily, annoyed and bewildered by her emotions. 

“Rae, it’s okay. You can just let go. I’m here.”

Raven nods and puts her forehead on Octavia’s shoulder, staring down at their skin touching. A long, silent sob pushes out of her open mouth before she finally sucks in a shuttering breath.

“Shh.” Octavia jogs a leg over Raven’s body, pulling her even closer. They lay like that for a long, long time, Raven’s crying ebbing away after a while. They just lay, feeling each other breathe. Octavia finds that even though a part of her in the back of her mind is uncomfortable with her body being exposed like this, she can focus on Raven’s body, and their skin pressed together, and forget about her insecurity. It doesn’t feel sexual, just intimate. 

  
  
  


During the summer, Octavia goes at least once a week to ride with Lincoln. Once they get more familiar with how her body handles riding and what she can safely do, they start going on trails or taking the horses to a lake nearby. Sometimes Raven joins them, usually electing to sit behind Octavia on Helios, and sometimes it’s just Octavia and Lincoln when Anya drives her and stays behind at the stables. Octavia loves riding through the woods, seeing the beauty of places she can’t currently go on foot. It feels like she’s not just healing, but growing and enjoying herself, and it feels so good.

  
  
  


They get married in the fall in a forest a few hours north, surrounded by bright leaves. Raven wears a sleek sleeveless dress with a mock turtleneck, lace on the bodice, and a simple, smooth A-line skirt. Her hair is half-up in curls and she wears sparkly dangling earrings and high heels. Octavia wears a clingy long sleeved dress with a deep v-neck and a sheath skirt. She had fallen in love with the dress the moment she saw it, but it took convincing from Anya and Raven and a few conversations with Niylah to assure her that her scars aren’t too noticeable in it. She wears her grown-out hair down in waves. Octavia wheels down the aisle next to Raven, and dances in the reception hall from her wheelchair. They’ve gotten used to her limitations and would rather have her comfortable and enjoying herself in her chair than trying to stand out of pride and getting dizzy and tachycardic or passing out. They have Bellamy as Octavia’s best man, Anya as Raven’s maid of honor, and Hyperion as the ring bearer. The night only consists of their closest friends and they’re both happy and relaxed and more in love than ever. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About one more chapter (the epilogue) to go. Anything you’re curious about in their future or want to make sure I touch on? It’s been such a privilege to write this story for you, I’ve enjoyed it so much!


	29. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience while I worked on this. I’ve been having some health issues that have made it hard to focus on anything but survival. 
> 
> I’ve really enjoyed writing this fic and it’s so bittersweet that it’s over!
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, I’d recommend reading my fic “Stop Telling Me to Breathe” or some of my other Octaven fics!

Things aren’t that different now that they’re married. They’ve been committed to each other for so long that not much is different except that they change their last names to Blake-Reyes.

  
  


They continue the almost painfully slow process of getting comfortable being intimate. Octavia has a panic attack the first time they try things with all of their clothes off. She’s more comfortable being on the giving end of things than the receiving end, so eventually Raven lets her try things with her. She’s somewhat worried about a repeat of their encounter in Octavia’s first few months home, when Octavia’s brain had thought she was ready but her body knew she wasn’t. But Octavia has learned her own boundaries well enough to avoid a situation like that happening again. While they’re both nervous enough not to be 100% present, they’re both excited too. When it’s over, Octavia slides up the bed to cuddle with Raven, who’s relaxed and a little spent.

“Was that… how was that? Fuck, I sound like a virgin.”

Raven laughs. “It felt really good. She kisses Octavia’s forehead, then her lips. “How are you doing?”

Octavia nods. “Good. I’m okay.”

“Can I return the favor?” She kisses Octavia’s jawline and licks her ear.

Octavia grins and her breath hitches, but she shakes her head. “Not tonight.”

“Okay.”

It takes her another 4 months before she’s willing to let Raven reciprocate which leaves the mechanic feeling guilty. Octavia finds when she does let Raven try things with her, that they have to get creative about positioning between her fear of having someone hovering over her and Raven’s bad leg/hip. But slowly, it gets easier. Octavia has been working with Niylah on her body neutrality mindset, and although it’s still a challenge, she’s getting more comfortable with her body the way it is. She and Raven are both patient with each other and eager to make sure each other are having a good time. They feel closer than ever in how vulnerable they’ve been with each other over the last year.

  
  


A year and a few months after the wedding, Octavia starts spending half-days by herself. She had gotten her driver’s license back about 6 months before and had driven several times since then. She’s been going to OT and a speech-language pathologist (SLP) weekly ever since the summer before the wedding. She’s gotten better at a lot of things. Raven finally lets her handle her own meds with the occasional check-in. She had practiced organizing them with the SLP using different painted beans instead of the actual pills until she could consistently put the right amount in the right places in her med organizer and set alarms for herself for every time she needs to take them. Then they had worked off of appointment schedules to talk through planning and organizing to get where she needed to go ahead of time, from what to wear depending on the weather, to how much drive time she needs, to meal-prepping. 

She keeps going to PT and starts doing rowing and swimming. Her POTS eventually lets her stand for around 15 minutes before she’ll pass out or nearly pass out. It still doesn’t feel good to stand most of the time. She uses her wheelchair for outings and uses a stool in the kitchen and in the bathroom when she’s doing her hair or makeup, but she’ll stand to do quick things around the house. Hyperion learns to alert her when her heart rate starts spiking or blood pressure starts dropping so she can sit down before she has a ton of symptoms. He passes a public access test and then she’s able to take him pretty much everywhere. It’s remarkably calming to have his presence in public, and helps remove anxiety she had previously had about being away from home or the doctor’s office.

  
  
  
  


Another year later, Raven comes home one afternoon looking frazzled. Octavia had been alone that day and had made them chef salads for dinner. Raven absentmindedly kisses Octavia on the cheek, eyes distant.

“Hon, you ok?”

“What? Yeah.”

“It seems like your head is somewhere else.”

“Um… I guess it is.”

“What’s up?”

Raven takes a deep breath. “Um, Sinclair talked to me today. He says… he says he wants to put me forward as a candidate for NASA.”

“To be an astronaut?”

She nods. “That would be the end goal. I’d also work on a lot of the equipment between missions.”

“Oh my god, Rae, that’s your dream.”

“I know.”

“So what’s wrong?”

“We would have to move to Texas.”

“Okay, so we move to Texas.”

“O, all your doctors are here. Your brother is here. Anya is here. Lincoln is here. Niylah is here. I’d be taking away your entire support system.”

“I can find new doctors. All my conditions are pretty well-managed at this point. We can visit Bellamy. Or he can come down to Texas. Same with Anya and Lincoln. And I can find a new therapist.”

“I don’t want to make you do that.”

“Baby, this is your dream. It would be worth it.”

They argue about it for weeks before Raven finally lets Octavia talk her into the idea. Octavia ends up doing hours of research to find specialists that can replace her current ones, a list of possible new therapists, and accessible housing options. It’s an impressive amount of research, especially considering Octavia’s troubles with organizing, so Raven takes her seriously. She finally agrees to the idea after a couple of months and they start apartment scouting. 

  
  


It’s a big transition. At first they’re so busy unpacking and organizing that they don’t really notice. But after a few months, Octavia starts to realize how isolated she is. She’s been going to a therapist but it’s hard starting completely over. She calls Anya and talks about her current predicament and Anya brings up something she honestly hadn’t considered: a part time job. She suggests getting in touch with the local disability advocacy program to make sure she can get accommodations for her PTSD and health issues. It takes a few months to find something suitable, but eventually she gets connected to take an interpreting exam for Spanish and then gets a part time job working with the local school district to interpret for meetings, phone calls, and paperwork. She had been fluent since high school. Hyperion is happy to come with her and keep her calm and confident. 

She keeps in touch with Monroe. They have Facetime calls at least once every couple of months. Monroe graduates from high school on time, somehow catching up despite their 10 month break from school. They start attending college for public policy to become an advocate with an anti human trafficking organization. Harper comes far enough along in her recovery to talk with them too, although not quite as often or for as long. 

Bellamy and Echo get married and have their first child, a daughter, 8 months after Octavia and Raven move to Houston. Octavia and Raven after Rene` Tapeesa Blake is born. They’re immediately in love with their tiny niece and happy to dote over her. Hyperion comes along too, of course, and is gentle and affectionate toward her. While they’re up there, they visit Anya and Lincoln too. 

It’s coming up on 5 years since Octavia escaped Emerson’s clutches. Each year the memories get a little easier. She even takes a few month gap in therapy while she and Raven close on a house, with no adverse effects. They’ve become well-established in Houston, with friends both at NASA and the school district. Their lives look a lot different than either of them had imagined and there are still ways that what had happened to Octavia affects them, but all in all, they’re grateful for each other and the life they’ve built. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you’ve enjoyed this fic, please leave a comment!


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